Will Storr

But lo and behold, as I was pushed off, I was left in my sort of own island.

And I talked to Will Storr about this.

You probably know Will.

author of fantastic books like The Status Games.

This is no exaggeration.

That's a line from a new book, a fantastic new book by Will Storr.

We just love Will Storr here at The Next Big Idea.

We had him on the show a few years ago to discuss his last book, The Status Game.

It was a conversation that I keep coming back to that fundamentally shifted how I think about humans, about what makes us tick.

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Will Storr, welcome back to The Next Big Idea.

You may tell yourself that since you're not bothered about material displays of wealth, that means that you are above petty disputes over where one stands in the social pecking order.

The author and journalist Will Storr says you're wrong.

Everybody cares about status, he argues, even if we don't realise it.

We are evolved to obsess over status and to immediately recognise it.

I've not thought about this for a long time.

But when I was starting out as a writer, this is before I wrote my first book, and I was trying to get an agent.

And so I kind of figured out who my favorite author's agents were.

And I wrote them all saying, you know, I'm this young journalist.

And the way...

You know, in the essay that I think you're referring to, I quote Will Storr, who's a writer who has a good book on status theory.

And in the framework he quotes, there are essentially three kinds of social status which are relevant.

These are dominance games, moral games, and competence games, virtue games and competence games.

For some reason, I can never actually use this advice as a tool, even though they give me the exact directions, because it always feel like it's just not part of my process.

Like, what do I actually do? Because use therefore instead of and then, My writer brain knows that's good advice, but it has not locked in and become a tool.

So, recently, I'm listening to Will Storrs' The Science of Storytelling audiobook.

He references Aline Brosh McKenna, screenwriter of The Devil Wears Prada, among many other things.

And she describes essentially the same thing.

But the research on gene expression and stress hormones suggests something more fundamental is happening.

Will Storr, who's written extensively about this, puts it perfectly.

We are status-seeking creatures down to our very cells.

The drive for status isn't vanity, it's survival.