The toilet brush is strong evidence that aesthetic spending is about personal pleasure, not status: it is a low-status, functional, rarely-seen object, yet consumers willingly pay a modest premium (and sometimes hundreds of dollars) for aesthetically pleasing holders—it is a bad way to keep up with the Joneses and therefore must be for one's own pleasure.

causalpending

Speaker

Virginia Postrel

Evidence Quote

it it's a very bad way to try to keep up with the Joneses. If you will. And and yet there has been quite an expansion of the this kind of very low-end um example of additional aesthetic pleasure.

Source

Virginia Postrel on Style 11/27/2006EconTalk
Created: 6/17/2026, 10:31:39 AM

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