Premium Mediocrity

[theanimal]

Venkatesh Rao (of Gervais Principle fame) wrote an essay in 2017 on the idea of "premium mediocrity."

https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2017/08/17/t ... illennial/

It’s basically what you think it is, products and services that are mediocre but with a slight unrelated premium in name or nonessential feature to give the illusion of luxury and status to the striving class. Some basic examples are premium seats on planes, Starbucks Italian naming of coffees (really all of Starbucks), cruise ships and so on. The product itself is usually mediocre, but it shows the consumer is aspiring to be part of the upper class, but is just not there...yet. It covers a lot of what we talk about here, in terms of status, affluenza & consumerism, and ideas of success.

Here are some passages from the essay. I'd highly recommend reading the piece in full.

Premium mediocre is the finest bottle of wine at Olive Garden. Premium mediocre is cupcakes and froyo. Premium mediocre is “truffle” oil on anything (no actual truffles are harmed in the making of “truffle” oil), and extra-leg-room seats in Economy. Premium mediocre is cruise ships, artisan pizza, Game of Thrones, and The Bellagio.

Premium mediocre is food that Instagrams better than it tastes.

Premium mediocre is Starbucks’ Italian names for drink sizes, and its original pumpkin spice lattes featuring a staggering absence of pumpkin in the preparation. Actually all the coffee at Starbucks is premium mediocre. I like it anyway.

Premium mediocre is Cost Plus World Market, one of my favorite stores, purveyor of fine imported potato chips in weird flavors and interesting cheap candy from convenience stores around the world.

The best banana, any piece of dragon fruit, fancy lettuce, David Brooks’ idea of a gourmet sandwich.

Premium mediocre, premium mediocre, premium mediocre, premium mediocre. Mediocre with just an irrelevant touch of premium, not enough to ruin the delicious essential mediocrity.

Yes, ribbonfarm is totally premium mediocre. We are a cut above the new media mediocrityfests that are Vox and Buzzfeed, and we eschew low-class memeing and listicles. But face it: actually enlightened elite blog readers read Tyler Cowen and Slatestarcodex.

Premium mediocrity is a pattern of consumption that publicly signals upward mobile aspirations, with consciously insincere pretensions to refined taste, while navigating the realities of inexorable downward mobility with sincere anxiety. There are more important things to think about than actually learning to appreciate wine and cheese, such as making rent. But at least pretending to appreciate wine and cheese is necessary to not fall through the cracks in the API.

Rao goes beyond the surface throughout the essay, discussing the idea of premium mediocrity as a naked call option on life. It's done in full awareness by the individual that the products/services they are using are not actually high end but they do it anyway. Why? Rao says it's performed more for their parents than themselves, to show that they are on the same upward trajectory as generations before them. There is bound to come a time when reality sets in and the reality sets in that the individual is not going to end up in the luxury class. I wonder what age or circumstances that ends up setting in and what the reprecussions are?

Once you see the idea once, you can't help but see it everywhere. Premium mediocrity is so abundandt and such a core part of consumerism. It is one of the largest components which the average EREr eschews in their lifestyle. This makes me think of those who object to low consumption due to the idea of sacrifice. Maybe they are not objecting due to losing the object itself, but the signaling function and status that goes with it.

[jacob]

So the idea is that the masses are knowingly buying junk products to project an aura of luxury? I propose a simpler explanation. These really are seen as aspirational goods and pursued sincerely in the way of traditional conspicuous consumption. It's only when those who purchase them are called out for [overpaying for inferior quality] that they'll defend themselves by insisting that they were in on the joke or doing it ironically all along.

[chenda]

Reminds me of the rise and fall of Ratner jewellery.

How one speech destroyed a business empire:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QbIcSLuyB ... cAhR29_xXO

[Western Red Cedar]

I recently read the ribbon farm article after Mark Manson brought it up in a podcast. They were joking about using an eight year old blog post to spark conversation, but that is a credit to Rao's writing:

https://markmanson.net/podcast/monocult ... -your-suck

[theanimal]

So the idea is that the masses are knowingly buying junk products to project an aura of luxury? I propose a simpler explanation. These really are seen as aspirational goods and pursued sincerely in the way of traditional conspicuous consumption. It's only when those who purchase them are called out for [overpaying for inferior quality] that they'll defend themselves by insisting that they were in on the joke or doing it ironically all along.

I don't think anything he says disagrees with your first 2 statements. Perhaps the only difference might be in whether or not it is a conscious choice. I think most of this happens unconciously, whereas Rao seems to think this is more of a concious choice. Mrs. Animal and I were discussing examples recently and I said most, if not all, of Costco's offerings would qualify. She was surprised that anyone thought things there were high end, but I think many do. It is emblematic of the following mindset:

Premium mediocrity is the story of Maya Millennial, laughing alone with her salad. She’s just not a millionaire…yet. She just doesn’t have a mansion…yet. She just doesn’t drive a Tesla…yet.

Rao does seem to think that people know what they are buying is mediocre but I'd disagree with that as well. You can see this a lot in airports now. Due to mass affluence, there are a lot of people who can afford pre-check services and airport lounges. There are numerous examples of lines being far longer in pre-check than normal security for instance, but people don't switch over. Same with lines extended dozens of people deep to get into lounges. They are disgruntled because they think they are purchasing some elite pass but the real luxury options are going first class, private or via high end Part 135 operators like JSX. In reality, $80 for precheck or $600/yr for access to an airport lounge does not buy you much and ends up as just another means of consumption. You're still in the same ecosystem in both cases. One you get to keep your shoes on, but still go through the same security rigamarole as everyone else and the other you're still in an airport, not the Four Seasons. If you asked people about it, they might agree, but I don't think most think of that in advance. Same with any other premium mediocre good or service.

[IlliniDave]

I think you conclusion is right, most people don't like to say 'no' to themselves. When I interact with non-ERE folks and they are critical of my choice of low key lifestyle I usually detect a certain defensiveness in them. Like they sense in their keeping pace or passing up the Jonses they're not being the best stewards of their resources, and get uncomfortable when they come across someone who behaves in a way that doesn't affirm their behavior.

And I like that phrase as a standalone thing. When I first read the subject line I thought, "That phrase applies to me!" Maybe if I ever start a band I'll name it that.

[TrailMix]

Reminds me of this story: Pineapple Mania

And today's sequel: Pinkglow Pineapples

Tied with the loss of signaling function and status is the potential loss of basic necessities and securities of life, perceived or real.

[7Wannabe5]

Very interesting article. Reminds me of some of Hanzi's thoughts. I believe the point of the article is Rao's ultimate defense of Maya Millennial vs. Molly Millennial and Max Millennial, and I think this could also be read as a critique of ERE, if ERE (or some not highest Wheaton Level of ERE) is seen as a function of both Max and Molly, eschewing Maya.

Oddly enough, Maya, she of the consciously worn mask and obviously premium mediocre theatrical life, is the most real person in this particular glass menagerie. Molly and Max Millennial, so sure of their own authenticity, are in fact the robots with Real People Personalities,™ products of Sirius Cybernetics. It is their pleasure to serve a fine cup of coffee for you, with artisan pride. Or a finely crafted marketing campaign for your fundamentally shitty product, delivered from Bali at a quarter of your local costs, with stoic grace.

(my emphasis)


I think what Rao is getting at with this is that those who demonstrate success playing edge games within an overall crappy system may sometimes function as apologists for the crappy system. ERE is a more complex edge game than Molly's or Max's, but if you posit Molly's "mission" as "eco-system conservation" and Max's "hustle" as "FIRE", then (Max/Molly) could approximate the core of the higher complexity ERE function.

Each has a nemesis. Molly’s nemesis is the basic bitch. Max’s nemesis is the basic bro.

And this is not entirely unlike how ERE has a nemesis which is the basic consumer. However, in theory, a complex function of Max and Molly (as opposed to just Max or just Molly) should provide Maya with what she wants better than a collection of products of premium mediocrity, so this leaves us (once again (sigh)) with the essential problem being how to move all the humans from "basic bitch/bro" to "complex bitch/bro." An obvious alternative solution which I have seen is when Max and Molly simply combine their capitals through marriage or similar collaboration.

[Scott 2]

I dunno about this. I'm far from status seeking. But I like the mediocre premium products. From what I've seen, people in the 7-8 figure net worth range appreciate them too.


Costco underwear won my loyalty - $5 per pair, a big step up from hanes. Costco tire service fixed my leak, in an hour, on a Sunday, for less than the local mechanic. No games. It's exactly what I want.

Starbucks iced green tea is reliable. It will never be accidentally over steeped in scalding water. I can't say the same for local shops. Yeah the names are dumb, but I'm certain of a minimum standard, anywhere in the country.

Give me Olive Garden over a pretentious Italian place every time. The waiter's not going to judge my cargo shorts, and I'll get an American sized plate of food. Not some tease that leaves me looking for second dessert at a convenience store. Or the stupid show where a waiter insists on opening my condiment bottles and folds a napkin every time I leave the table.

Yeah a pour of 18 year highland Park tastes different than JW Black. There's more nuance. Better??? Dunno about that.

No argument on the airport lounges. Those are horrendous.

From what I've seen, these products are around the sweet spot of the diminishing returns curve.

[Ego]

Quiet Luxury is Premium Mediocrity turned up to eleven.

[IlliniDave]

I dunno about this. I'm far from status seeking. But I like the mediocre premium products...

Some good points here, Scott, and it's interesting how switching the order of those two words changes the implication, at least in my mind. Premium mediocrity implies sort of a bait-and-switch--trappings that signal status are more of what you're paying a premium for than for quality, and mediocre premium seems to imply finding a sweet spot in the cost/benefit space for decent quality items.

The article itself I couldn't even read all the way through. I wondered if it was some sort of satire, honestly--the writing of a premium mediocre essay about premium mediocre based on my interpretation of the diction. I skipped to the "conclusion":

The premium mediocre gentry are the cultural market makers and stone-soup instigators that the new economy needs to emerge. In the end, this is what the much-valorized hillbillies who want to fearfully retreat from the future don’t get. That inventing the future means showing up to help sustain the fiction while it is being built out. It means taking risks to make money, meaning, or both.

And it generally came across as a "my tribe is the superior tribe" sort of thing. And we late Boomers and X-ers are the villains, and ere-ers presumably the hillbillies who want to fearfully retreat from the future and do "backwards" things like seek value, eschew status, and to whatever extent we accumulate means, fly under the radar with them, rather than doing our duty to play along until utopia emerges. No doubt Millenials and those clustered near them have faced economic challenges different than what us curmudgeons did. I'll not get into my beliefs of the root of those challenges, but one of the great strengths of ere is that it simultaneously looks backward and forward for answers, and skipping over the looking backwards part runs the risk of producing unstable "solutions". I remember writing in my journal some years ago that a significant paradigm shift in my own journey came from finally understanding the wisdom of my grandparents. I didn't create a time capsule of their world to dwell in, but tried to carry with what I remembered of their values with me.

I think we're in general agreement that there's nothing wrong with using money to chase after things a person values, and that it can be done in reasonable manner that balances goals and values both short and long-term, and nice things aren't inherently immoral or stupid to value.

[7Wannabe5]

Since I am the parent of adult Millennial children, I would also note from my perspective that Rao only kinda sorta got the signaling between the generations with premium mediocrity right. I am Gen-X Slacker, so not representative of typical Boomer parent of Millennials, but the parents of my kid's friends (so, my "Mom friends") who were mostly around 10 years older than me would meet this description.

The problem with Rao's argument that the Millennials are using premium mediocrity to console their Boomer parents collapses under the observation that Millennials also often offer up truly premium bits of cultural capital to their parents. Youth culture has always been one of the chaotic edges of cultural creation. So, it's not unusual for youth on what Michael Church described as the Gentry/Cultural ladder to comprehend that their parents who are also on this ladder might appreciate such offerings. I mean, "Here is an interesting bit of cultural capital I bring to you from towards the cutting edge of youth culture" is not very different than "Here is an interesting bit of cultural capital I bring to you from my recent trip to unusual destination." So, even something of only "mediocre" quality from "youth culture" would be made more valuable through transfer to "oldster culture." However, this article is pretty dated at this juncture, and Millennials are now too old themselves to objectively be considered creators of youth culture, although they still may play the relative role of curators of youth culture for their parents.

An example of what I mean by truly premium cultural capital would be the education in a scientific field that my DD33 received at a top "Ivy League of the South" university. Her in-laws are a quite affluent Boomer couple who gifted my daughter and her husband with the ability to purchase a home in their 20s. My daughter told me that she thinks her sister-in-law (Silicon Valley kept wife) is somewhat jealous of the fact that her introverted retired scientist father-in-law happily converses on scientific topics with my daughter. I am also happy to converse with my DD33 on nerd topics, and just yesterday she offered me the cultural capital gift of knowledge of a new game which is like Scattergories, but made more difficult for the "pretentiously nerdy" which she had learned about from one of her "pretentiously nerdy" friends.

OTOH, an example of what I would consider premium youth cross-cultural cutting-edge capital would be the music recommendations I received from the inner city 8th graders I taught. My own kids and my ex-'husband's kids also used to provide me with mixed-tapes and recommendations when they were teenagers. I make a point of reading novels written by the youngest adult generation simply to keep in touch with the direction of movement of this cultural edge.

Hanzi Freinacht claims that cultural capital begins to overtake financial capital at Level Yellow/Meta-Modernity. So, signaling with premium mediocrity might just be a not very interesting way of attempting to be "interesting." I observe a decent amount of this in conversations between elementary school teachers, who may often be first generation aspirants to lowest rung on Gentry/Cultural ladder. If you consider it in terms of something like "Degrees of Separation from NYT" then "premium mediocrity" signaling might be the range from half a degree below to half a degree above "Don't read it, but believe I should." OTOH, the "pretentiously nerdy" signal I might drop would be the note that my DD33 has been paid a very small stipend to act as a beta tester by one of the editors of the NYT puzzle section, and it would be somewhat difficult for me to transform the value of this tidbit to something more like my daughter's current balance in her 401k or pay rate at a boring job, because beyond "signal", the first could serve as a conversation starter for The Inclined to be Interested, and the second would be more towards a conversation killer.

OTOH, one of the rallying cries against the "pretentious elite" (as opposed to what NYT columnist moderate's moderate David Brooks refers to as the "sleazy elite") I recently happened upon was "You told us to just learn how to code. Now you will just have to learn how to work a shovel!" And although I am able to sympathize with the sentiment, I also wonder what the growth forecast for positions as Shovel Worker are likely to be into the 21st century?

[ffj]

It's everywhere. Look at the different car and truck "packages". Premium this, premium that, everywhere you look. Now there are some areas in life where I can legitimately discern quality differences, tools come to mind, but anything subjective is a fools game. Let's be real here, a lot of mediocre stuff out there is pretty good or good enough. And if I overpay it is because I get something tangible in return.

I eat at Chick-fil-a when I have a choice of fast food. Why? I overpay for what I get but the kids that work there are clean, respectful, and polite. That's worth a few extra dollars to me, not because the food is exceptional. It's good enough. I do wish they would quit saying "my pleasure" all of the time though, haha. It is disconcerting.

[bostonimproper]

The marketing term for this phenomenon is “affordable luxury.” It is a conscious effort by companies to appeal to people who feel like they are unable to afford “real” markers of wealth (e.g. a house, retirement) or the expensive alternative to a good (e.g. bespoke wood furniture, etc.) and to instead give them splurges that feel in reach. It also allows the customer to feel like they got a deal, achieving both cheaper cost than true luxury alternatives and the perception of “premium.”

[Seppia]

Exactly
Affordable luxury, or affordable premium, is how CPG companies call the products that are essentially a small step up in quality and price from the very mainstream items.
Depending on the categories of goods (and the corresponding average margins) they can be great value for money or a ripoff.

In food for example, especially for the least processed foods, there is very often a direct correlation between cost and quality.

Generally, I believe the modern industrial world to be essentially miraculous in its ability to produce exceptional quality goods at ridiculously low prices.
As consumers, we are getting “great deals” all the time, on everything in the context of human history.

If people then chose to buy the $8 overpriced quality latte and forgo spending $1 extra for the better quality canned tomatoes that will make enough sauce for a pasta for 3 people…
Their choice.
I think from our ere perspective (regardless of how “advanced” one is) we have all seen our fair share of head-scratching money allocation.

[jacob]

I'm wondering where/how "kitsch" figures into this. The line seems to be whether people partake "ironically" or not.

[7Wannabe5]

I think kitsch is more towards a hard-mix of fancy and tasteless, not to be confused with a hard-mix of cheap and tasteful. Designer heels and dime store grandma panties vs. silk panties and dime store flip-flops. The further up the ladder of cultural capital you go, the more likely it will be found in a more interior zone, and with cultural capital this process of enfolding towards interiority can even continue after your death to the extent that your lifework remains classic yet inaccessible.

[Laura Ingalls]

Quiet Luxury is Premium Mediocrity turned up to eleven.

I am not sure about. I know people in subcategory of humans that “love to shop” that would not recognize “quiet luxury” items if they were hit over the head with a brown bespoke Italian shoe. Some of them look down at my thrifted wardrobe or an older well-maintained car. They have developed no skills at discernment. Brands and new stuff are their only (poor) source of cues to an items quality.

[Ego]

Brands and new stuff are their only (poor) source of cues to an items quality.

Oh, absolutely. I love finding high quality items second-hand for very little because my fellow second-hand buyers do not know how to spot quality. We had the good fortune to meet @WRC and his DW. She can wander through a thrift store and identify couture dresses simply by looking at the stitching. She can then alter them to fit her using the same stitches. Amazing.

In my mind, Quiet Luxury is not about identifying quality. It is about identifying the subtle signals that tell others in the know that you have good taste and wealth, without having to display crass logos. It is just higher order signaling.

[ertyu]

Someone of Rao's cultural background might be signalling to his parents bc of how culturally important it is to get their approval and to feel like you're "good enough" for them, but observing myself when i consume premium mediocrity (around here, any visit to the local mall counts, because that's when you aren't buying food and clothing from the street vendors), I'm mostly soothing myself. I would assume most others do also. Signaling to others isn't involved because I have no audience (though it may be involved for someone taking pictures of, say, overpriced boba tea for social media).

I do, a bit, signal to myself, a part of why is, I seem to need to is as an escape from overall financial anxiety (of which, as is known, I have plenty) as well as to escape an overall sense that im not "how I should be" -- the guilt of not fulfilling the protestant work ethic ideal, I guess -- being ambitious, working hard at whatever work would pay best instead of burning out and getting a semi-ERE job, etc. So, I'm closest to what @bi argues -- I appear to use boba tea and such as emotional crutches more than anything else. Escapism etc.

I don't assume I'm that much different from the average consumer monkey in that respect, I'm just doing it in a situation/COL which allows me to still keep a savings rate of 2/3 in the worst months (e.g. this month when I had to buy 2 plane tickets to go to my consulate to deal with paperwork and also, because reasons, attended a weekend trip with a bunch of middle and uppper middle class professionals where i spent to fit in -- there was a group dinner where the bill was split evenly, for instance, and so forth). I will spend around 1000 USD this month even so. The trip is an exception, however -- mostly, my engagement with premium mediocrity is grazing and self-soothing on various drinks and snacks, wearing xero shoes, and so forth.