The Positional Economy And The Effects of Greatness: When Long Term Success Makes You Un-Cool
L’Abattoir
Jamie Mah @grahammah
The year was 2000. I was 20 and living in Saskatoon. One of my favourite pastimes back then was spending time finding great new music. I did this predominantly at my local HMV. I craved sourcing out the newest CD’s. That summer, I remember hearing a song by a British band named Coldplay. The song was their hit single, Yellow. I loved it immediately. Still do. It was catchy, melodic and had a great sound. It was a cross between 90’s Britpop and U2, two sounds that resonated with me at the time, and I soon purchased their album, ‘Parachutes’. Other songs on the album, like their other hit single, “Trouble” soon had me playing Coldplay on the regular. They had become my new favourite band.
By the fall of that year, it became apparent to me that many others felt the same way as Coldplay were becoming really popular. In February of 2001, I found myself lucky enough to attend their first ever North American concert here in Vancouver. My brother and I had flown out to see them and, well, honestly they sucked. The room was barely half full and they played for only 45 minutes. But, it didn’t deter me from continuing to love their music. Years and subsequent album releases passed, and my admiration for Coldplay grew even further. Yet, by the summer of 2008 something changed, and I found myself no longer enjoying their music.
It started when I was out one night with my then girlfriend. We were at a lake and her mother had decided to put some music on and Coldplay began blaring away as we prepared dinner. Her mother had become a big fan and she’d recently purchased their newest album. Startled by this revelation, and somewhat uncomfortable, I listened as she told me how much she loved all their albums. For some reason, it bothered me to hear her say this. Coldplay was my cool band to like, not my girlfriend’s mother’s.
As time went on, their popularity grew even further and my interest waned as I found myself rarely listening to any of their music. By 2010, my iPhone contained no Coldplay whatsoever. I had come to the conclusion that I no longer enjoyed their music.
So now I’d like to ask: Why did I stop liking them the minute they became the very thing I’d loved about them in the first place? Why did their extreme popularity bother me?
Hold that thought.
This notion of popularity and how it can affect one’s perception was brought to my attention recently when someone told me they hated L’Abattoir* because it was pretentious. When told this, I found it perplexing as L’Abattoir is, and has been, one of my favourite restaurants here in Vancouver for a long time; pretty much since day one of their opening. Paul Grunberg, their owner, is someone I respect and admire immensely and his General manager, Lisa Haley (I interviewed her for Scout Magazine a few months ago) is so good at her job, it can be frightening. I’ve never heard of anyone complaining about their food, drinks, service or whatever when speaking about L’Abbatoir. For all I know, they are beloved by many and they’re constantly busy. I just recently ate there and had a terrific meal. So, when presented with this idea of pretentiousness, it got me thinking.
**L’Abattoir is a very successful independent restaurant found in Gastown. It’s been around since 2010. That same year they were nominated as one of EnRoute Magazine’s 10 Best New Restaurants. The baked oysters on their menu are unbelievable.
Has L’Abattoir’s success caused them to become un-cool? And if so, should they care?
Are they suffering from the same symptoms as Coldplay?
Going back to the early 2000’s, watching the Los Angeles Lakers play basketball and win championships was one of my favourite things to do. I was a hoops junkie — I still am. I couldn’t get enough of Kobe and Shaq. But, as the two of them started to reel off title after title, I soon found a lot of my friends, who had once liked them just as I had, were now rooting for their demise. It was the classic David vs Goliath argument. Once Davids, now mighty Goliaths, many wanted to see them fall. I guess, in a way, it’s why we love sports. We love rooting for the underdog versus the champion.
But is that fair? And should we?
The success of the Lakers, Coldplay and L’Abattoir should be why we love winners. Watching those who inspire greatness brings out the best in who we all are. Yet, we turn away the moment they become too successful. Why? It’s as if having too much success causes many to backlash against what they themselves don’t have.
When presented with the idea that L’Abattoir was a pretentious restaurant, I immediately wanted to laugh at the person. I wanted to ask them, ‘how can you hate on something so good?’ After some thought, I realised that I had done the very same thing once before with Coldplay. It wasn’t their music I no longer liked, it was how their success had caused them to become mainstream. They were no longer my little secret. Everyone now loved them – even mothers — and rightfully so.
Should they be punished for that? Should L’Abattoir be punished because they’ve now become extremely popular?
I don’t think so.
As with anything that becomes successful, how do you absolve yourself from becoming too big? What’s more important: being cool or being successful? Can’t you have both?
In my opinion, I believe, in the short term, that yes you can have both, but in the long term, no. Success begets jealousy.
There’s a term for this type of behaviour that economists like to call “positional goods.” It’s when something specific is admired by a small subset of people and is exclusively available to their own group. But, once the “sheep” start getting involved, the original group starts to feel a lot less special — hence the backlash (i.e. being called pretentious). When L’Abattoir first opened, Gastown was just starting to explode in popularity. Fast forward years and Gastown is now the epicenter of dining in Vancouver. L’Abattoir had a huge say in this, which unfortunately, may have triggered this response. So, in a way those who may have loved it in the beginning are finding themselves feeling less special now that the “sheep” love it too.
Tvtropes.org has this paragraph which helps explain things rather nicely.
“In either case, this elitist tendency essentially turns Fandom into a speculations market — if you like it before it’s popular, or if you hate something because it’s popular, only then does your profit margin in coolness points amount to anything when you fling away your shares in the fandom in horror of the masses. (Incidentally, note the jargon here. “Speculations market”. “Profit margin”. “Shares”. Ironic, no?) If it never Sells Out, no one will get the name recognition when you say “I liked X before it was popular.” Ironically, fandoms of little-known works almost always expand by word of mouth — the very reason it became popular is that these people kept talking about how cool it was, and enjoying acclaim from being the one “in the know” about a good work before anyone else. (Which they lose when it becomes popular.) For further irony value, these snobs often claim to be X’s original and/or true fans — but, in dropping X like a hot potato after X becomes popular, they actually reveal themselves to be fair weather fans (or, if you prefer, foul weather fans), since if they truly were a fan of X, then they would be supportive of X becoming popular.” — tvtropes.org
This idea of positional goods was forwarded by the economist Fred Hirsch in his book ‘Social Limits to Growth’. In it, he makes the distinction between the material economy and positional economy. The difference between the two being what we need to survive (food, shelter, clothing) vs what our society deems positional luxuries (cars, air conditioning, college education). Once the material needs are met, those luxuries are now made to been seen as necessities. It’s an interesting way of looking at how we perceive value while equating quality and status as forms of superiority. L’Abattoir to my friend had now become a place of status, due to their high quality and exclusivity. There’s only one and they offer something only select few (due to pricing, seating capacity, hours of operation) can enjoy, thus making them seem superior or in his case — pretentious. It’s a weird and sad way to look at our positional economy in the sense that those who strive for greatness oftentimes end up becoming un-cool as well, as they’re seen as something only select few can enjoy. It creates a sense of inequality and jealousy by those with lesser means. But this is only part of the argument.
As George Will states in his piece “Envy and Pretentiousness Make The World Go Around” he quotes Stanford Professor Francis Fukuyama’s idea that “ it is a peculiarity of human beings that they desire some things “not for themselves but because they are desired by other human beings." It is this idea that gives credence to understanding that what we want isn’t necessarily the reason why we want it.
As I now realise that I was a foul weather fan of Coldplay, my understanding of why I liked them in the first place can be traced in some part by knowing they were new and small in popularity. But once that bit of luxury I’d found in liking their music was taken away (with their rise in popularity as more and more started to like them) my true feelings for actually liking them came to fruition, which showed that I really didn’t. Had I truly liked them, I’d have stayed on through their rise to the top.
Incidentally, Yellow was the song that I immediately gravitated towards, but looking back now, I believe the one song I still love immensely is “Green Eyes”, which is from their second album “A Rush of Blood to the Head.” Now that’s a great tune.
The Lakers got so big that people eventually started wanting them to fail. I did the same thing for Coldplay and when told by this person that L’Abattoir was pretentious, his disdain for their success was now causing him to want them to fail. He’d grown tired of how good they consistently were. Yet, his narrative shouldn’t have been that L’Abattoir was a pretentious restaurant but that L’Abattoir has become a very popular and successful restaurant that he wished wasn’t that popular. His pettiness in saying they were pretentious calls into account the notion that, eventually, anything that becomes successful for a long period of time will succumb to the backlashing tropes from those who now wish it to fail. It’s such a stupid way of thinking but one almost all of us do at some point.
In the Bible, David kills Goliath with a small rock to the forehead. Being called pretentious is like throwing a rock at Goliath, except in L’Abattoir’s case their forehead is their front door and they can close it whenever they wish. They’re not going anywhere and I love that.
But how do we absolve ourselves from this notion of wanting the best to fail because they’ve become so good, for so long? Honestly, it’s a question worth asking but one that’s probably impossible to solve. The positional economy will not end. Inequality will always exist and those who reach the top in whatever they do will nevertheless succumb to some form of backlash by those who wish them to fail. It’s who we are.
Pretentious or not L’Abattoir rules and I intend to go there always. Coldplay? It might take me a bit to get back on that train, but I’ll try.