No Status, No Mask

In an event called Status Burn: An Artistic Ritual last week, philosopher and singer-songwriter

Alex Ebert

ran us through a "status burning" exercise. It was simple: do something on social media to reduce your status.

I took a series of ugly photos of myself and asked Camille which one was the most hideous, then posted it without context on my Twitter account, where I have 6k followers.

This felt edgy for me to do. I don't particularly like taking photos of myself; when I do, I try to look good in them. I rarely post on Twitter now, and when I post, I post philosophical stuff or announcements about events I host. I also have some "high-status" people following me. I was worried that people would think I had gone crazy or my account had been hacked. 

My online persona is a Stoic guy, who is pleasant enough, but has a resting barbarian face and rarely smiles. I am not the guy who posts out-of-context photos looking like a fool. I turned on courage mode, felt through the resistance, and posted the image. I experienced a pleasant high afterward. I felt free.

I felt a pull to look at my Twitter right after. I did not, and instead, I sensed into the pull. It is the same pull I get when I want to police people's impressions of me. It is the same pull that makes me want to put on a mask.

***

It was December 2021, and Camille and I were in Copenhagen. This was during the heat of the "Covid moment," when Covid was the only thing on the news. Toronto was unpleasant to be in around this time. I could feel the lifelessness in the city and the underlying fear causing it. Everyone was hypervigilant about the virus, and people even wore masks in their cars while driving alone.

Copenhagen was quite different. Nobody was wearing a mask. I mean nobody. Looking at all these good-looking maskless Danes was quite the treat, and when speaking with them, they were happy not to wear them anymore. I felt no lifelessness in the city; it was quite the opposite. Going on rides in Tivoli Gardens while getting cozy drunk from Glögg, and stuffing our faces with Aebleskiver, was a life-affirming experience.

People in Canada consider Scandinavian countries like Denmark a utopia. So, why were there so many fear-ridden mask wearers in Toronto, and none in Copenhagen, especially when the Covid stats were similar at the time? I was confused by this, so I looked up the efficacy of masks. While I am not a scientific researcher, I became unconvinced I needed to wear one, especially since I was not afraid of the virus. The Omicron variant was spreading then, and given how it was spreading, I knew the Covid moment would be over soon, and the mandates would quickly drop, which they did a few months later.

We returned to Canada, and instead of the Covid moment winding down, it was heating up to a climax, eventually leading to the convoy protests and the invocation of the Emergencies Act. I was having a hard time walking into stores with a mask on. I felt out of integrity wearing one, and was doing so out of fear, not fear of Covid, but fear of being called out, breaking the rules, and losing status in people’s eyes.

I felt like I would lose status if people thought I was stupid for not "following the science" or a crazy "conspiracy theorist" who was also an evil "nazi," which is what people were being accused of if they did not fully agree with the "Covidian narrative." I did not want to be seen as this. I wanted to be seen as how I was trying to be seen online: a thoughtful and sensitive philosopher type.

It was getting too painful being out of integrity. One day in January, Camille and I were about to walk into Whole Foods, and we were about to put on our masks, then looked at each other, and our looks said "fuck it." We walked into a store maskless when everyone was wearing one. It felt intense in my body. I felt like I was out of my body for a moment. I stayed with the intensity and imagined the dirty looks and thoughts people sent us.

Something shifted. I felt high. An erotic charge coursed through my body. It felt powerful. Nobody said anything to us; if anything, they seemed scared of us. For the next few months, I did not wear a mask and got no pushback; instead, guys gave me five highs and said things like: "fuck yeah, brother." I only got denied service once, ridiculously in Tim Hortons, on the last day the mask mandates were in place in Ontario.

I am glad I had the opportunity to feel the power that comes with living with integrity and feeling the rejection that naturally is a consequence of doing so. Freeing myself from wearing a mask freed me from the mask of how I want others to see me.

***

I’ll define status as a sense of social ranking assigned by others due to some real or perceived value. One’s status can be influenced by “status symbols,” the clothes we wear, the residence we live in, and the luxury goods we own. It could be influenced by the beliefs we display or what sociologist

Rob Henderson

calls “luxury beliefs” that signal our virtue without actually needing to be virtuous.

Another way status shows up is through "occupational prestige," how one's job and career imbues high or low status. The following chart is from a paper on high and low-status jobs:

This chart corresponds well to the "intersubjective" sense - the shared perception between people's beliefs - I sense many have about high and low-status jobs. Doctors and lawyers are at the top, while cashiers and servers are at the bottom. This chart misses something at the bottom: not having a job.

Slightly above being a criminal, unemployment is perceived as low status. I was unemployed twice, and it was rough on my psyche. I felt like a loser, that I would be judged as having low status, which is to say, having little or no value. Feeling like I had no value to others was an emotionally taxing experience. I think the fear of this pain is why there is status anxiety among many I know.

People spend a lifetime chasing after or hacking their status by buying things they cannot afford, signaling beliefs they cannot defend, or negotiating for impressive job titles that mean nothing. We can argue that status does not map to the actual value of a human being. I agree with this. However, beliefs are like spells, and when enough people believe someone to be something, it's a hard spell for that person to break.

The spell can be broken. Status is like a mask, one that can be taken off. It will feel intense in the body, and sacrifice will be needed, and there will be real consequences. "Friends" and opportunities will be lost because of poor appearance, wrongthink, or not being employed. There is a good reason why not having status is emotionally painful.

However, the burning status will burn away any valueless illusions. It frees you so you can be you. It's not wise to burn status willy-nilly. In most cases, it's wise to play the status game. The art is to avoid getting captured by it. To not get captured, the courage is needed to burn status when it is wise. If I am unwilling to burn my status, I am trapped. I will not reach my potential. I will be unable to do what I am deeply called to do. I will live out of fear to avoid being perceived as valueless by others.

There is something more valuable than the value perceived by others: living with integrity. Sometimes living with integrity involves wearing a mask and playing the status game, and sometimes what is needed is to take off the mask, stop playing the game, and burn status for everyone to see.

On the other side of the paywall is an exercise for status burning. Getting status burn reps in now will be needed so we'll have the courage to burn big when it is wise.