You may be surprised to realize that you’re the one being superficial here in equating style with money. Dressing well does not require money - what it signals is a form of sophistication or good taste in the case of high fashion, or tidyness and well-being for casual clothing. Millions of people dress nicely from Primark/C&A alone, and even fashion students get going on tight budgets sourcing second hand items.
Much like keeping your hair looking good, trimming your nose hair and so on, these signals will never be completely ignored unless social norms for personal care change significantly - and that’s not happening without a significant cultural / economic / health shift.
> what it signals is a form of sophistication or good taste in the case of high fashion, or tidyness and well-being for casual clothing.
Caring about sophistication or good taste in fashion is a luxury that it takes money to afford. Even just the time investment it requires to be fashionable, to source nice clothes and plan outfits and all of that shit, it's absolutely the domain of people who have money.
I don't think you've ever been poor. Poor enough that "second hand" doesn't mean thrift stores, it means "hand-me-downs".
You shouldn’t jump to conclusions - there are many people on hn from other countries where having access to a thrift store defines you as relatively wealthy.
Either way, if you look like a hobo on your livestream setup, then people are likely to judge you.
I wish the world was less judgemental, but you don’t get to tell others how to be, so you have to live with how they act, and sometimes that means playing dress up. Sometimes it is
a sign of respect for other people’s opinions - some people really care about how you dress and that is OK.
Edit: also if you are obviously needy, then are you sure you can’t find thrift stores that will give you stuff for free? The best stores are run by volunteers who just want to help people.
You presuming to tell other people how they should think, according to your worldview, is also “bullshit”.
Accepting how other people have other opinions, rightly or wrongly, is just part of being a participant in this world.
If you interact with others as you are doing here, then perhaps you need to learn some wisdom.
Note that I agree that judging others by how they dress is bullshit + I have always hated it myself. I would also hazard a guess that you judge others for how they dress e.g. I expect you don’t like power dressers, or extremely fashionably dressed people.
The existence of society is a form of control on you. That's almost the entire point of society; standardized expectations and norms meant to maintain order.
So's... like, everything in society, really. Capitalism itself comes readily to mind, as an extreme form of soft social control that's actually not all that soft at all, in aggregate.
In the case of clothing, marking willful non-conformists is, notably, a significant part of its true (as in: accurate and useful) signaling value. This is where some counter-cultural fashions come from, in fact—an effort to make it crystal clear that one is dressing contrary to fashion norms on purpose and not by accident. To signal a distinction between the non-conformist and the ignorant or destitute.
You invest your time into your appearance so other people won't need to waste their time trying to determine if you're trustworthy.
Appearance is a heuristic. Raging about it is counter-productive.
Much like keeping your hair looking good, trimming your nose hair and so on, these signals will never be completely ignored unless social norms for personal care change significantly - and that’s not happening without a significant cultural / economic / health shift.