Project 5: Realize

Status Anxiety

December 2019

Under the pressure of current fast-paced society, people appear to show anxiety through various behaviors and lifestyles. To relieve from the insecurity caused by the stress of not falling behind, many people appeal to consuming commodities extravagantly. Influenced by the capital investments and consumerism, people attach more extra values to items which do not deserve corresponding appraisal. Also, through series of self-deceiving consumption activities, many seek in vain to recover from their status anxiety. But the more they purchase, the more they feel insecure and anxious and eventually, it forms a vicious cycle of vanity to anxiety, then to temporary fulfillment by consumption, finally to next level of insecurity. My work intends to examine the relationship among individual values, social values, identities through observing the dynamics of different lifestyles and ideologies and thus to reveal the absurdity and distorted nature of the consumption-oriented value system.