Billionaire Wilderness by Justin Farrell

Author:Justin Farrell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2019-12-19T16:00:00+00:00

Similarly, a banker from the West Coast felt a personal “release that I don’t have to dress a certain way, or I don’t have to look a certain way, I don’t have to talk a certain way. I don’t have to kiss anybody’s ass and I can just be myself, and maybe that’s one of the comforts of the whole area is that you can really be yourself.” To dress any other way, according to one other interviewee, would “not be consistent with the value system here. It’s very understated.”

This process of self-transformation also extends to the vehicles the ultra-wealthy choose to drive. Pulling up in a pickup truck or worn-out SUV at the local greasy-spoon cafe prevents one from sticking out as inauthentic (that is, rich), and additionally signals that one is conforming to the norms of modern rural Western transportation. Some interviewees were very explicit about the cars they chose to drive. As one put it, “You know, I consider myself wealthy, but don’t show it. You know, I drive a truck.… But I would never—you know this is ridiculous—but I would never buy a Cadillac, just because I don’t want the image of owning a Cadillac. Even though they are good cars, I would never buy a Mercedes because I just didn’t want the image of [driving] a Mercedes.”

In the words of one gentleman who splits his time between Wyoming, Boston, and Los Angeles:

I mean, you’re not going to be able to tell by the truck the wealthy drive [laughs], or for that matter the Maybach or the Rolls Royce that they drive. No one is doing that. Nobody cares, and quite frankly it wouldn’t fit for obvious reasons … most people aren’t getting themselves up and dressing differently. No one is going to work in a three-piece suit, that’s not the environment.… To the extent that the financial community is there, they can go to work in jeans and boots, hence there’s nothing wrong with that [laughs]. A lot of the customers you’re going to go see those days are going to be obviously dressed the same way, so there’s no outward delineation of where the lines are drawn visually.

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