Fortunately, we have the option to aspire to something better. I’m not saying such signalling etc doesn’t exist, just that in the same way as I choose not to assault or murder people when I’m angry at them, I also choose to present myself and choose my partners based on personal qualities rather than superficial crap.
Seems I’m generally speaking a lot more fulfilled, content, and happy in life than those who choose to live like chimps.
And not everything you signaled was profound and you might not have even realized your partner chose you for the shallow parts, even if they'd never admit it directly.
If you buy a jpg for 300k while you could have bought a nice house with that amount of money, you are honestly unfuckable and being unfuckable and gullible is all that you are signalling.
Besides, it's women who do the signaling, that's because they can't approach to save their lives.
NFT crowd should grow some balls, approach, get rejected and repeat until success...like real men do, instead of buying monkey jpg to "signal mating"
Even if they don’t directly care, you had better believe that the price of a Rolls Royce shapes the way that people think about them; and you buy one because of the way people will think about it. Same goes with the art you put on your wall (an incredible painting that you got for cheap will never be as cool as something by someone whose art is in the MoMA, even if it’s still very cool).
I’m not sure NFTs are going anywhere either, but some people definitely care about receipts. Conspicuous consumption can be very conscious.