The technology scene outwardly values openness, transparency, and creativity, maintaining a vestige of meritocracy. But Silicon Valley has long prioritized entrepreneurship, technical knowledge, and wealth. The mixture of these two sets of ideals peculiar to Web 2.0 creates a climate in which participating in the culture of techno-business, sharing personal information online, and commanding and maintaining a large audience have become modern status symbols. The highest status is still wrapped up in engineering culture and technology-fueled wealth, but the popularity of social media has given rise to an equivalent hierarchy based on attention and visibility. Since this shared set of values and beliefs is the context that fuels the creation of social software, unpacking it helps us to understand the assumptions that technology creators make about “users” and “social behavior.”

Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, loc. 175