Overwritten.net
Community => General Discussion => Topic started by: Quemaqua on Wednesday, July 04, 2007, 03:50:33 PM
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I really don't need to know what time it is that badly. (http://cgi.ebay.com/1964-Vintage-Heuer-Carrera-Chronograph-THE-ORIGINAL_W0QQitemZ160130137025QQihZ006QQcategoryZ31387QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD7VQQcmdZViewItem)
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That's nothing. My uncle sold his old Rolex for $15,000.
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I like nice watches. By 'nice watches' I mean watches that look nice in the $100-200 range. And even then I'd rather have a knockoff and $180 in my pocket.
I can understand some people paying a lot for watches. Some people actually collect them as a hobby and know every single thing about the unique mechanical processes within that watch. What I can't understand are nice watches as status symbols. That's just stupid.
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Yeah. That's sort of my thing. I understanding collecting useless stuff because... well, I do it.
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I like nice watches. By 'nice watches' I mean watches that look nice in the $100-200 range. And even then I'd rather have a knockoff and $180 in my pocket.
I can understand some people paying a lot for watches. Some people actually collect them as a hobby and know every single thing about the unique mechanical processes within that watch. What I can't understand are nice watches as status symbols. That's just stupid.
Everything is a status symbol nowadays. The clothes you wear, the car you drive, the watch you wear, the cell phone you use... it's all status symbols nowadays.
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Yeah. It sucks... but then again, I can't honestly think of a time where civilization existed where it wouldn't be like that. The unique thing now is that everyone is trying to be on the higher levels, often through tasteless means.
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Everything is a status symbol nowadays. The clothes you wear, the car you drive, the watch you wear, the cell phone you use... it's all status symbols nowadays.
Well, that's one way of looking at it, but there are people who buy things because of the utility they can derive from them rather then the impression they make.
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I don't consider a single thing that I own to be a status symbol. I buy things because they're either functional to me, less expensive than other things when I don't care about having the best of something and can save money, or because I love them and have some kind of mental or emotional attachment to them.
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Watches are jewelry. In particular, they're jewelry for business executives, which is how they can be so ridiculously, stupidly expensive (http://www.tic-tock.com/). For example this watch, which I can't even read, costs several times my monthly salary:
(http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/188/c19211glx6.jpg) (http://imageshack.us)
Yeah. It sucks... but then again, I can't honestly think of a time where civilization existed where it wouldn't be like that. The unique thing now is that everyone is trying to be on the higher levels, often through tasteless means.
That ain't unique. Off the top of my head, I can think of at least three examples of other cultures dealing with the lower classes imitating the upper ones.
- In Flatland, a Romance of Many Dimensions (a Victorian novella long since out of copyright - you can read it for free on the Internet): The whole first part of the novel describes Flatland society (a parody of Victorian society), and discusses how the "jagged" lower classes tried to imitate the "regular" upper classes.
- Rome (early, Republican, and Imperial) had laws governing, for instance, who could wear the color purple or who could ride in a litter.
- Wearing swords was the ultimate social privilege in ancient Japan - up until the practice was banned early in the Meiji era. Wearing swords means you're a samurai, and being a samurai is like being a cowboy, a ninja, and a Victorian gentleman all rolled into one. In fact, Japanese custom allowed samurai to flip out and kill people for all sorts of trivial offenses, with essentially no legal repercussions. Early in the Tokugawa shogunate, the wearing of swords was restricted to just samurai, and samurai were forbidden from owning land, practicing tradecraft or selling goods - essentially preventing people from other classes from becoming samurai.
PS there's a reason for me knowing this shit off the top of my head.
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(http://img398.imageshack.us/img398/1015/c32123pd4.jpg) (http://imageshack.us)
How much? C'mon, guess, how much do you think that watch should go for?
No, more than that.
No, more than that.
A quarter million dollars, retail price. Yours for $175,000,000.
http://www.tic-tock.com/wingates/watch-detail/32123
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Oh yeah, everyone tries to look better than they are... I'm honestly sorta not remembering what I meant when I said that. Odds are it was something about how tasteless popular culture is currently or how too many of lower status are trying to appear higher through endless debt or ugly symbols (SUVs, ugly watches, party-lifestyles, the whole rap-culture thing going on right now, ect). Although, now that I'm thinking about it more, that's hardly anything unique either.
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Yeah, it isn't. It's just that you and I live in a country inundated by cultures that obsess over material wealth and outward appearance over basically everything else, so it gets annoying pretty quickly.
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insanity.
the most expensive watch i've ever bought was $80. if an expensive watch was given, of course i'd accept but never buy..
I had a $20 watch when i was younger and i had it for 4 years with no problems.
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My current watch was around $450, and I like it quite a bit. there is definitely a dfference in quality between it and a cheap watch. If you think of a watch as a piece of jewelry it really isn't much of a stretch to think that people are willing to spend a ton of money on one. For men aside from a wedding band, a watch is really the only piece of jewelry that can be worn in a business situation.
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For me, I just want to know what time it is. And that doesn't even have to be super accurate or anything. My clip watch is just fine, keeps the time and if I lose/break it I'm only out $10.
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I've actually got a cheapie $60 watch I wear when I'm not dressing up as well so I don't have to worry about scratching or losing my nice watch. I imagine I'll probably get another for when I'm on patrol that can take a bit of a beating.
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Antares, so you don't wear any necklaces? my cousin (he's a metro) wears a necklace, rings, and a watch. haha
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I wear both a necklace and a couple of rings when I go out, Sometimes a punk rock wristband as well instead of a watch. I just don't wear any of it to work because some people, especially older ones may find it unproffesional.
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ahh.. which makes me wonder if any of you wear those elastics with words on it like "freedom" "hope" "i win"
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I don't wear things on my wrists because I have a tendency to fidget and play with them.
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I think my watch cost about 80 to 100 bucks. I can't remember exactly. It was a Christmas gift from my wife. It's nice enough, but it isn't ridiculously fancy or anything, and I don't consider it to be a piece of jewelry at all. Nthing I wear is ornamental. It all means something, otherwise why the hell wear it? I have a watch, I have my wedding ring, and occasionally I wear my other rings (my father's pinky ring, which I got when he passed away, and a ring that my mother bought me on a trip, which reminds me of her... I also had one that used to be my sister's - it was pretty masculine - but I lost that one). I wear a tarnished gold cross on a silver necklace pretty much always (I really never take it off), and that's because it was given to me by my parents when I graduated from high school. Neither of my tattoos are strictly ornamental either, one of which depicts a cross that my dad bought for me in New Orleans when we went there which was later stolen from me, and the other which depicts various ideas sourcing out from the representation of a pocket watch my mother gave me one valentine's day.
I hate ornamentation for the sake of ornamentation. It's one of the reasons I can't stand many cultures that just do things for the sake of style or whatever. I hate rappers, rockers, emo kids, guys that wish they were in GQ, whatever. I'm used to it with a lot of stuff (being a metalhead I obviously have to put up with tons of that), but it still pisses me off.
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Only que can admit to wearing well more jewelry than the average man in one breath, and in the next make a convincing case why nobody else should. ;)
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I have nothing against jewelry, I just hate the flashy morons that generally wear it for all the wrong reasons. I consider myself a happy medium. I rarely wear my other rings at this stage of my life (generally just my wedding ring), and nobody ever really sees my cross because it stays under my shirt.
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Don't forget your little computer chip thing. You know, the one that's quietly taking control of all electrical equipment around you.
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Yesssss. World domination will soon be within my grasp...
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Yesssss. World domination will soon be within my grasp...
wha.. what in your grasp!?! ah... that's the last time I out source to India!
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That's me I guess. I wear my facial piercings because I like the way they look. I think I've spent more money on some piercings than I've spent on clothes or other jewelry actually.
My most expensive ever:
watch - $30
shoes - $40
any article of clothing - probably $30 for pants
My last watch I got from Hot Topic, because it was a cool rocker wristband thing with a watch on it. I would get sweaty and I stopped wearing it when I got a cell phone and could read the time off that.
And Ant, you could most definitely get away with wearing a cock ring into a business environment. :P
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Gah. That's meant to pierce other things, not be pierced.