Status and STATUS

How come status updates don’t actually confer capital-S-Status?

I had an enlightening conversation with a fellow dad while we dropped of our second-graders at school.  Said dad works as a video engineer.  Among other projects, he helps independent filmmakers by handling a lot of the more unglamorous tasks of producing a film.  Yes, even less glamorous than editing.

Among other things, we talked about how social media has an impact on our jobs.  However, he had an entirely different frame of reference on “social” than I did.  That is, he talked about his current project, which involves turning a critically-acclaimed novel into a film.  He mentioned that the film’s investors put money into the project, not because they expected to participate in the artistic process, not because they wanted to make tons of money but by-and-large because they wanted the capital-S-Status of a production credit.

And that, friends, points to a glaring deficiency of social networking.  Everyone participates as an equal.  However, this deficiency offers itself up as a potential opportunity for marketers.