Keeping up with the idiots
B. Lorenzo Buckinchere
Jul 19, 2026
Ever heard of luxury poverty?
The act of appearing wealthier, or otherwise more important than others through materialistic possessions, and a false sense of comfort, versus having real power?
Except that before I’d issued the Buckinchere Wager, people were referring to it as peacocking.
If you go to a place, such as NYC’s Times Square, or LA’s Hollywood and Highland on a Saturday night, you will see normies out and about, seeking attention by appearing rich for a night.
That is what is known as peacocking.
Every city in all the history of mankind has its designated peacock zone. Whether it was the brothels of ancient Corinth, or Athens, or the club scene of every modern city in the world, peacocking is one of the most active moving parts of the social game, and is really just one giant dick measuring contest.
Both genders practice peacocking.
Male weapons of choice include, but are not limited to; cars, women, motorcycles, money, clothes, chains, etc.
Female weapons of choice include, but are not limited to; shoes, cosmetics, purses, the male gaze, or male attention. Cars and money are secondary.
Peacocking is particularly unwise, because egos tend to flare in those situations, and booze and sex is like dousing the flames with gasoline. In some countries such as Brazil and Colombia, where masculinity can be truly toxic, peacocking is dangerous enough to get you killed.
Peacocking is mostly intra-gendered, but it can also be inter-gendered. It can occur among couples, and within friend groups.
Speaking of friend groups, peacocking, though highly concentrated in certain city zones, is not confined to them.
Peacocking can take place in the PTA at your son’s school, or in your HOA.
Enter Karen.
But you wanna know where peacocking is notorious for taking place the most?
At work!
The workplace is a marketplace where people go to compete with each other for resources, and measure their self-worth with the resources that they were able to gather, compared to what others in the workplace have.
The competition is so intense, that they will literally set you up to get fired for simply buying a car.
Jealous co-workers be like, “We’ll see how much you like your new car once you end up living in it.”
Whether you work white-collar or blue-collar, the workplace is a melting pot of people from all different backgrounds, and different mindsets who are performing neuro-typicality for a paycheck.
The culture becomes toxic when you have egos flaring due to a cocktail of insecure people competing for resources, and everybody wants to be the “It” factor. That’s usually when management starts picking favorites, and punishing the hard worker who simply does their job and goes home.
And as if that wasn’t enough, the peacocking game doesn’t end when you clock out of your shift at 5 O’ clock.
As soon as you walk in the door when you get home, your wife tells you, “we’re having dinner over at the Joneses tonight.”
And you’re like, “Again? We just had dinner with them last week.”
Your wife insists, and threatens to have you sleeping in the dog house again, when all you want to do is kick back with a beer and watch the game.
You already know that dinner at the Joneses will be nothing more than a massive ego fest about the new car they just bought, or about Mrs. Jones’s new purse.
What follows next is an existential crisis. You start looking back on your life, and re-assessing your life choices.
Is the suburban home in the HOA, and the job status, and the car really worth playing this stupid dick measuring contest and keeping up with the Joneses? Would you have actually been happier living as a minimalist in a one-bedroom?
You never asked for much. All you ever really wanted was health and financial stability. Perhaps to hang out with your buddies, playing acoustics in your garage at 2 AM.
You look in the mirror, and you notice that you’re not getting any younger. It was only yesterday you were playing soccer with some of the neighborhood kids.
But now, you notice a bald spot, and another existential crisis kicks in, the undefeatable biological clock we all must face.
Then you see one of your co-workers, a younger man who is so happy with so little, and… you hate him.
“Who does he think he is?!”
Before you know it, you are joining the others in setting him up.
You have become the very villain you despise!
You have it all, yet you’ve never been unhappier because it’s still not enough.
But what did you really expect?
After all, it was just a stupid game of peacocking. You chose to play the social game when you should have been playing the power game instead.
Remember, peacocking is really just the act of reinforcing luxury poverty by going into debt to purchase things you don’t need to impress people who don’t care.
Some of these people are deeply flawed. Almost all of them wish they were in your shoes. Yet here you are feeling inadequate without their approval.
But power has many forms after all. Including the power of freedom and peace of mind.
So what do you ultimately choose?
Keeping up with the idiots? Or competing with your mirror image?
© 2026 The Buckinchere Publication, SP.
All Rights Reserved.
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