A Messy Guide to Social & Cultural Capital for Young Americans Of Flyover State Origin

A few years back, I stumbled on a blog post on San  Francisco’s dating scene with the headline: “Women Should Date Carpenters the Way Men Date Yoga Instructors.” The piece attempts to advise women who are over-optimizing dating in San Francisco, and while I have opposing views about solutions to that than the author, I will save them for another post.

What caught my attention was its underlying assumption about class. A yoga instructor is not perceived as the same social class as a carpenter.

Yes, affluent coastal guys will happily date yoga teachers, but you rarely see them dating hairstylists who probably make way more money than those teachers.

Why?

That disconnect highlights a larger collective blind spot: in America, social and cultural capital are not directly tied to wealth. This post unpacks that idea. First, I’ll offer a quick primer for Midwestern or “fly‑over” readers on what social and cultural capital looks like on the coasts. Then we’ll look at why wealth alone doesn’t grant high status, and how understanding the subtler codes of class can expand your mobility.

American Class Mobility

America has this fascinating cultural quirk where we celebrate stories of class mobility while simultaneously refusing to discuss how class works. We see exurban car dealership millionaires with their McMansions decked out in grey vinyl and insist that class does not exist in America because even our "elite" lack basic aesthetic taste. But they are not the "elite" by any social consideration of the term, despite their net worth.

In the land of new money, class and capital can be challenging to discern due to our traditional associations with them, which often center on dollar amounts, cash, and net worth.

Before I go forward, I should clearly state that social capital and cultural capital aren't technically the same. However, for the sake of this post, I'm conflating the two as they often go hand in hand. Someone such as Donald Trump may have a lot of social capital but not much cultural capital. Early 20th-century Russian immigrants who read Dostoevsky while living in tenement apartments would have had relative cultural capital, but may have lacked social capital due to their immigration status, which limited their ability to accumulate broader social influence.

What Is Perceived as "High Status" if Not Wealth?

This seems obvious, but I think it's worth stating that class isn't directly tied to wealth. Often, one depends on the other, but it doesn't have to be.

Let's say there are two women, one born in San Francisco and the other in a so-called flyover state, who both live in San Francisco.

Suppose the one who moved became a yoga instructor and works paycheck to paycheck. She has her necessities, but not much left over for luxuries. The other, a lifelong resident of San Francisco, is a hairstylist who makes $150,000 per year. This is also not "wealthy," but by no means is it living paycheck to paycheck. The hairstylist has a considerable amount left over each month for small luxuries, such as outings and occasionally a vacation.

Both of these women have professions with similar levels of licensure. The hairstylist may even have more credentials than the yoga instructor. We also know that the hairstylist earns more than the yoga teacher and that she is a native-born coastal resident. Both of their professions are also commonly done by women, so there's no gender dynamic at play. Yet, a hairstylist would be perceived as blue-collar and probably not as "high status" as the yoga teacher.

A framework that may explain this is that social and cultural capital is often gauged by:

• Relationships

• Consumption habits

• Ideology and beliefs

When we consider a yoga teacher, we think that she is probably friends with other yoga teachers, maybe gurus, DJs, or artists of some sort. Despite these not being "elite" jobs, they all carry some prestige for being in creative fields. We also assume that she eats vegan/vegetarian/organic foods; perhaps she wears linen clothes, and her idea of a vacation is a retreat to Bali or Tulum. Having moved from another state is also a bonus because it implies a specific agentic nature in her life.

When compared to a hairstylist, we have no context on this person beyond the fact that they are a woman who has chosen a profession commonly pursued by women. It doesn't tell us much about their consumption habits or taste. Nor do we know about her friends or partners. Therefore, based on this limited information, we assume that she is probably from an average, ordinary background. For the elite, this is not a good signal because social and cultural capital in America is largely about signaling that one lives outside the mass-produced ecosystem of industrialization. I’ll talk more about that later when I discuss consumption habits.

Start Young

Young people possess something invaluable: unrealized potential. When you're young, others still project possibilities onto you rather than fixed limitations based on what you have (or have not) done. This optimism creates genuine opportunities for mentorship and network building that become increasingly rare with age. Although you can make dramatic life shifts at any age, if you're seeking some form of class mobility, it's best to start as young as possible. If you reach out to people for coffee chats or informational interviews, they are far more likely to grant it to you if you’re perceived as young and eager to learn. Others are willing to give you chances that people may be otherwise skeptical of providing to someone under 25 years old.

Elite Universities

I believe that credentialism, as we have understood it over the past few decades, is undergoing rapid change. With that said, as of now, the (relatively) easiest way for a young person to signal class and accumulate social capital is by attending an "elite" four-year institution.

Suppose your intentions for attending university are to make money without further thought. In that case, you should be intentional about where you attend and make the most of those four years, because the cost of a relatively unknown 4-year university may not measure up to the pay you’ll receive after attending.

If your purpose is class mobility, simply attending a state school or any university for the sake of a degree may not promise the return that it once did. I'm sure your state school has excellent programming, but the point of universities (outside of fundamental research) isn't to learn. It's socialization and signaling. It signals that you can stick with something for four years to get a rubber-stamp of approval from the intelligentsia. Keep in mind that, having met and known average graduates from "elite universities," I haven't found them to be remarkably smarter than average university graduates from less prestigious schools. My point is that many people still care about which university someone attends, and if you intend to work for someone or raise capital for a business, it will probably work in your favor. The network it opens you up to, as well as understanding how people from other social classes operate, is incredibly important. It will open doors that you did not even know were there.

Consider a Gap Year

If you don't think an elite university is an option or you don’t care about applying to one, I suggest considering a gap year. Not only will this increase your network and the perception that others have of you, but it'll also widen your perspective of the world. American students are, unfortunately, quite limited in the places where they can obtain a working holiday visa, so you may have to research other ways to travel as a young person without a university education.

You may also consider going to a larger US city, working at a coffee shop, and getting roommates for a year while you learn about life. Due to the high cost of living, I realize that this is inaccessible for many people, and I believe it is a massive disservice to American social mobility that we don't have easier paths for people to live in cities. With that said, if you can make it out of your small town or state, consider doing so, even if only to broaden your ideas of what you believe to be possible.

Live Among Them

Although I have not personally experienced either of these roles, I believe that working as a nanny or an au pair is an excellent way to gain a better understanding of class mobility.

Keep in mind that if someone feels that they're doing you a favor (as many who employ others tend to think), they may not perceive your abilities to be broader than what they hired you for. So this may not be a direct path to wealth itself. Yet, domestic work, whether as nannies, tutors, or personal assistants, provides unparalleled access to the private behavioral codes and relational networks that define upper-class social mobility.

My closest experience was tutoring the 17-year-old son of an elite East Asian banking family in mid-2010s Tokyo. It began with answering a university bulletin board advertisement seeking a "warm and empathetic woman”.

The family operated within Tokyo's multicultural financial elite. The father held a senior position at Goldman Sachs Asia and appeared regularly on Forbes lists. At home, the mother orchestrated a domestic ecosystem that included two live-in Southeast Asian “helpers” to assist with their eldest son's severe disabilities and day-to-day household operations.

I was assigned to tutor the younger, 17-year-old son, who was brilliant, which initially confused me. His room contained advanced physics and calculus texts far beyond my capabilities, yet his family insisted I tutor him in SAT history and literature despite his native-level English. The disconnect became comprehensible when I understood my function within their discipline system: I was leveraged as a reward when he behaved well, withdrawn as a consequence for poor behavior.

Once, the boy accidentally revealed to me that when he misbehaved, his mother would threaten: "If you don't do [whatever she was asking him to do], no more pretty tutor." This transactional framing revealed multiple layers of social positioning and how people from certain social classes view interpersonal relationships with others, especially those they employ. The mother did not yell because she didn't need to. People from certain social classes often collect and utilize others strategically to make their lives easier. These dynamics, while initially disorienting, provided crucial insights into how affluent families perform their cultural capital and manage their social hierarchies.

Become an Artist

If you neither want to attend university nor take on assistant roles with wealthy individuals, you can come in from the top by becoming an artist of some sort. Culture as we know it flows downstream from artists and tastemakers, positioning creative work as a potentially powerful vector for social capital accumulation.

This pathway operates on different principles from traditional networking strategies. Rather than seeking proximity to existing power structures, artistic practice creates alternative circuits of cultural influence that can intersect with and sometimes supersede conventional elite networks. The caveat is that you must genuinely enjoy the work, remain comfortable with consistent failure, and accept living in relative poverty during the initial years. Artistic credibility cannot be purchased; it must be cultivated through sustained practice and genuine engagement with creative communities.

The strategic advantage lies in how cultural production positions you within tastemaker circles that often precede and influence broader social trends. Successful artists don't merely reflect existing cultural values; they participate in their creation and transformation.

Understand the Consumption Habits of Upper-Class People

Consumption patterns across all class levels shape Americans. The standard narrative is that poor people are addicted to consumption, but in actuality, consumption patterns look different for different groups of people. In an age of ever-decreasing scarcity, consumption habits often signal status in ways that may appear invisible to the unaware.

Some of this is region-dependent. If you're on the East Coast, you may signal this by purchasing physical art or artisanal craft goods. If it's a bohemian bourgeois crowd, it may involve wellness retreats. For some groups, it may include consuming arthouse films. Keep in mind that one thing that consistently defines the upper-middle class is their anxiety about being mistaken for "common." They typically have class anxieties and have worked too hard to be confused with mainstream culture.

Common people consume common things: mass-produced blockbuster films, mass-produced resorts, mass-produced chain restaurants, mass-produced fast fashion, top-40 music, and bestselling fiction books.

The elite distinguish themselves by consuming things that require cultural knowledge, time investment, or insider access. It could be obscure musicians, independent films, artisanal products, or experiences that can't be easily replicated through mass consumption. Although “quiet luxury” is a TikTok trend, few understand that the distinction isn’t in wearing monochrome outfits or avoiding flashy labels. It utilizes tastefully unique consumption patterns to emphasize one’s intellectual and aesthetic superiority over the masses in a way that many can’t replicate.

Don't Directly Talk About Class, Status, or Wealth

This goes against the very premise of this blog post, but in social contexts, it makes sense. Stop asking people "What do you do?" as your first conversational question (and "what's your story" is also incredibly clichéd, so stop saying that too and just have an everyday conversation).

Don't ask people their university "rank," don't talk about salary with people you don't know, don't discuss test scores (IQ, SAT, ACT, whatever) unless it's relevant. Also, avoid discussing status in such a transactional manner. I was at a party in San Francisco for someone well-known on social media, and throughout the night, multiple people announced loudly that "So-and-so is so famous, right?! They have X amount of followers!" Yes, we all know that. That is why we're all here.

This comes across as transactional and tacky to discuss money and status brazenly, even if it's your own. It doesn't impress people who have these things, and it makes you look fraudulent.

Don't Be Humble (But Don't Brag)

This may seem like the opposite of the statement I wrote above, but genuinely, don't be humble. You need to find ways to signal your intelligence, capabilities, and worth to others (because if you come from a non-elite background, people may routinely try to patronize you). Don't do it by bragging. Do it by being an extraordinary person and having your work demonstrate that. Casually mention your accomplishments in a way that neither diminishes them nor comes across as a desperate attempt to prove yourself due to insecurity.

You can find subtle ways to showcase your abilities and accomplishments through competence, insight, and genuine contribution rather than self-promotion. Let your expertise shine through your conversations, your taste be evident in your choices, and your intelligence emerge in your observations.

The Reality of American Class Mobility

The uncomfortable truth is that American class mobility requires understanding unspoken rules that nobody explicitly teaches.

Success in this system often comes from strategic positioning (through education, geography, or networks) combined with authentic excellence in your chosen field. The goal isn't to abandon your background but to expand your toolkit for operating across different social contexts.

Class mobility in America is possible, but it requires first acknowledging that class exists. Once you understand the game, you can decide how you want to play it, whether that's working within the system, creating alternative pathways, or building something entirely new.

The most effective approach combines awareness of these dynamics with genuine personal development and contribution. After all, the best way to transcend class boundaries may be to become so valuable in your chosen field that the traditional rules bend around you.