I don' t think that's the right income cutoff at all. In my experience the brand signaling occurs in the poor-lower-middle class regions, then stops from there all the way up to the new money but no taste crowd. Rap stars, etc. I don't know anyone in the HN/SoftwareDev income range who loves to show off brands, with occasionally some cars as maybe the exception.

Though I will say Nike shoes tend to be an exception across the board. Seems like everyone has a pair of those.

I don't think there's a demographic that doesn't brand signal aside from nomadic herders. Some demographics are into the whole subtlety thing, but definitely still signal. Brands signal wealth, but also taste, intelligence, class, and tribe.

For HN: Cars, Electronics, Universities, FAANG on your resume, consumer products that signal your care for the environment or concern for your health/fitness.

I agree. I mean to say if we restrict to exclusively signaling wealth, rather than other things.

Perhaps I phrased it poorly. It's only certain groups (largely separated by income), but unless they're a celebrity, it seems to largely taper off at extreme levels of wealth, where brands become 'subtle' again.

These comments are kind of hilarious when the average software engineer’s wardrobe consists almost entirely of tech company t-shirts/hoodies with giant logos on them :D

You mean free clothes?

Not really the same. More like tribal affiliations. See also laptop stickers.