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jmh22d43

There's a Korean expression that basicly seems to be "the look is right" or "the look fits" which seems in line with your comment. The same outfit, hat, shoes, glasses, jacket or even car for different people create a different image in other's heads. There is a different message getting sent.

So if the overall point for the post is about the signaling then I suspect it is very important to consider the device one chooses to send messages like this. In other words, yes breaking some social/cultural standards to make certain points is fine but thought needs to be put into just how appropriately your chosen device/method "fits" you will probably have a fairly large impact on your success.

I suspect that holds just as well if you're looking at some type of "polarizing" action as a mechanism for breaking the ice and providing some filtering for making new acquaintances and future good friends.

See in context

104 You can just wear a suit

by lsusr

26th Feb 2025

2 min read

104

I like stories where characters wear suits.

Since I like suits so much, I realized that I should just wear one.

The result has been overwhelmingly positive. Everyone loves it: friends, strangers, dance partners, bartenders. It makes them feel like they're in a Kingsmen film. Even teenage delinquents and homeless beggars love it. The only group that gives me hateful looks is the radical socialists.

The first time I go somewhere wearing a suit, people ask me why I'm wearing a suit.
The second time, nobody asks.
After that, if I stop wearing a suit, people ask why I'm not wearing a suit.

If you wear a suit in a casual culture, people will ask "Why are you wearing a suit?" This might seem to imply that you shouldn't wear a suit. Does it? It's complicated. Questions like this one follow the Copenhagen interpretation of social standards; their meaning is defined retroactively.

If you respond with anything other than quiet self-assuredness, then people pick up on the incoherence. This will probably happen the first time you wear a suit just because you want to.
If your subtle mannerisms and other contextual clues imply that you should be wearing a suit, then not only is it acceptable for you to wear a suit—it's appropriate. Why wouldn't you be wearing a suit? Suits are awesome and so are you.

There are correct and incorrect answers to the question, "Why are you wearing a suit?" After experimenting with several different answers, I notice that other people respond well to, "I like to, and I think it makes me look good." You have my permission to steal this answer for yourself. This answer is good for multiple reasons:

It communicates that I'm not wearing a suit because I have to for my job.
It implies that I don't care if anyone else wears a suit. This puts other people at ease.
An ironed, well-fitted suit does look good.

I wouldn't wear a suit everywhere. I live on the West Coast of the USA, which is very casual. That makes wearing a suit a fashion statement. If I wore a suit in Japan, then it wouldn't look like I'm making a fashion statement. It would look like I just got off of work and didn't have time to change.

I don't wear a suit to work. If I did, then it wouldn't be fun to wear one casually. In this way, wearing a suit helps create work-life separation for me.

If you're wearing a suit, then don't comment on anyone else's clothes (unless they compliment you first). This is the reverse of normal social advice. Normally, complimenting other people's clothes makes for a general-purpose icebreaker. However, if you're wearing a suit, then drawing attention to others' appearances just draws attention to yours, which is counterproductive.

That's because if you wear a suit in a casual culture, then you want to be sending the subconscious message It's no big deal that I'm wearing a suit. I'm just the kind of person who wears a suit.

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[-]daijin24d3714

congratulations you're on the way to becoming barney from HIMYM

[-]lsusr24d20

I haven't watched How I Met Your Mother, so I'm afraid that reference is lost on me. The only sitcom I've watched is Little Mosque on the Prairie, which is about a community of Canadian Muslims.

[-]keltan24d91

Feels weird to be linking to a video on LW. But you’ve just gotta watch this It’s brilliant.

[-]Jiro23d3414

Spend your weirdness points wisely.

Wearing a suit in an inappropriate context is like wearing a fedora. It says "I am socially clueless enough to do random inappropriate things". The fact that people will eventually stop asking you about the suit does not mean that you are no longer saying this message, nor does it mean that people will stop listening to it.

And if your reaction is "I'm just not conforming. I'm not harming anyone, why do they care?", it's sending a message. Messages don't need to cause harm for people to react to them.

That’s because if you wear a suit in a casual culture, then you want to be sending the subconscious message It’s no big deal that I’m wearing a suit.

You have a limited ability to choose the message that your action sends. It may not be possible to wear the suit and avoid sending the message that you are socially clueless. You also have a limited ability to make people believe your message. You can send the message "I think the suit is no big deal", but nobody is forced to agree that the suit is no big deal.

[-]Kaj_Sotala22d128

Wearing a suit in an inappropriate context is like wearing a fedora. It says "I am socially clueless enough to do random inappropriate things".

"In an inappropriate context" is ambiguous. It can mean "in a context where people don't normally wear suits" or it can mean "in a place where people consider it actively wrong to wear a suit".

There are of course places of the latter type, like it would be very weird to wear a suit in a gym or swimming pool. But I don't think lsusr would advocate that.

If you just mean "in a context where people don't normally wear suits", then wearing a suit in such a context could signal social cluelessness, but it could also signal confidence and self-esteem.

[-]Jiro22d3-3

This reasoning would justify violating any social convention whatsoever. "Refusing to say 'please' and 'thank you' signals confidence and self-esteem".

Yes, it does, but signalling those things and signalling social cluelessness are entwined. "My self esteem is more important than these petty rules" can mean that you think you are really important compared to the rules, or that the rules are unimportant compared to you. You're also overrating self-esteem. Signalling self-esteem is often a bad thing.

(Remember how fedoras became a sign of cluelessness? It's not very different from out of context suits.)

[-]Kaj_Sotala21d83

This reasoning would justify violating any social convention whatsoever. "Refusing to say 'please' and 'thank you' signals confidence and self-esteem".

Wrong. I distinguished between conventions that people have a reason to respond negatively to if you violate them (e.g. wearing a suit to the gym or swimming pool which is stupid since it will ruin both your exercise and your suit), and behaviors that just happen to be unusual but not intrinsically negative. Refusing to say 'please' and 'thank you' would fall squarely in the category that people would have a reason to feel negative about.

My understanding is that fedoras became a sign of cluelessness because they got associated with groups like pick-up artists, which is also an explicit reason to have a negative reaction to them.

[-]Jiro18d2-2

Refusing to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ would fall squarely in the category that people would have a reason to feel negative about.

It's not like wearing a suit in a swimming pool. Never saying "thank you" doesn't physically damage things. It just makes people upset because of the social inappropriateness, like the inappropriate suit.

[-]interstice23d94

Wearing a suit in an inappropriate context is like wearing a fedora. It says "I am socially clueless enough to do random inappropriate things"

This is far too broadly stated, the actual message people will take away from an unexpected suit is verrrrry context-dependent, depending on (among other things) who the suit-wearer is, who the people observing are, how the suit-wearer carries himself, the particular situation the suit is worn in, etc. etc. etc. Judging from the post it sounds like those things create an overall favorable impression for lsusr?(it's hard to tell from just a post of course, but still)

[-]lsusr23d124

Yeah, I started wearing a suit in specific contexts after many months of careful consideration. It's not random at all. Everything about it is carefully considered, from the number of buttons on my jacket to the color of my shoes.

I mostly wear it around artists. Artists basically never wear suits where I live, but they really appreciate them because ① artists are particularly sensitive to aesthetic fundamentals and ② artists like creative clothing.

[-]jmh22d43

[-]Ben23d90

It says "I am socially clueless enough to do random inappropriate things"

In a sense I agree with you, if you are trying to signal something specific, then wearing a suit in an unusual context is probably the wrong way of doing it. But, the social signalling game is exhausting. (I am English, maybe this makes it worse than normal for me). If I am a guest at someone's house and they offer me food, what am I signalling by saying yes? What if I say no? They didn't let me buy the next round of drinks, do I try again later or take No for an answer? Are they offering me a lift because they actually don't mind? How many levels deep do I need to go in trying to work this situation out?

I have known a few people over the years with odd dress preferences (one person really, really liked an Indiana Jones style hat). To me, the hat declared "I know the rules, and I hereby declare no intention of following them. Everyone else here thereby has permission to stop worrying about this tower of imagined formality and relax." For me that was very nice, creating a more relaxed situation. They tore down the hall of mirrors, and made it easier for me to enjoy myself. I have seen people take other actions with that purpose, clothes are just one way.

Long way of saying, sometimes a good way of asking people to relax is by breaking a few unimportant rules. But, even aside from that, it seems like the OP isn't trying to do this at all. They have actually just genuinely had enough with the hall of mirrors game and have declared themselves to no longer be playing. Its only socially clueless if you break the rules by mistake. If you know you are breaking them, but just don't care, it is a different thing. The entire structure of the post makes it clear the OP knows they are breaking the rules.

As a political comparison, Donald Trump didn't propose putting a "Rivera of the Middle East" in Gaza because he is politically clueless, he did so because he doesn't care about being politically clued-in and he wants everyone to know it.

[-]Jiro23d41

But, the social signalling game is exhausting.

Yes, but that doesn't mean that you can just avoid it and its consequences. Like war, you may not be interested in it, but it is interested in you. And if you can't avoid sometimes messing up, you can at least avoid making it worse than it has to be (such as by gratuitously wearing inappropriate clothes).

They have actually just genuinely had enough with the hall of mirrors game and have declared themselves to no longer be playing.

Yes, but he's acting like it's a triumphant success. Voluntarily deciding "I don't want social skills" is a surrender that seriously harms you. If you can't get social skills perfect, at least do what you can. And he certainly can avoid wearing inappropriate suits, even if he might mess up deciding when to buy drinks.

As a political comparison, Donald Trump didn’t propose putting a “Rivera of the Middle East” in Gaza because he is politically clueless, he did so because he doesn’t care about being politically clued-in and he wants everyone to know it.

Genuinely communicating "I don't care and I want you to know it" without communicating bad things at the same time is countersignalling. Not just anyone can countersignal. Trump can do this because he's in a powerful position that implies a certain amount of cluefulness (and even then, his opponents are happy to jump on this sort of stuff as evidence of cluelessness).

[-]CronoDAS21d*4-4

I believe that Trump is, in fact, exactly that clueless and completely unaware of how clueless he is.

Edit: For the record: my biggest reason for believing this is having read reports of what many mainstream Republicans who worked under him during his first term have said and written about what he was like.

[-]lsusr20d21

Personal moderation decision: I'm cutting off the Trump discussion here. Any further comments will be removed, on the grounds that their political mindkillery effects trump their relevance to this discussion.

This policy applies only to this post and does not generalize to my other posts.

[-]CronoDAS20d31

on the grounds that their political mindkillery effects trump their relevance to this discussion

Pun intended? ;)

But yeah, it's getting off-topic and there's plenty of other places to discuss that kind of thing.

[-]lsusr20d31

I'm glad we're on the same page. :)

[-]Jasnah Kholin22d21

Voluntarily deciding "I don't want social skills" is a surrender that seriously harms you.

citation needed. my own experience is the opposite of that. refusing to play the game let you take the role of the local nerd, and it's not a bad role. and it's much much better then trying to play the game and failing.

[-]niplav23d192

Similarly, you can just wear a leather jacket and sunglasses.

[-]Mateusz Bagiński23d*162

Similarly, you can just notice that the [thing you tend to admire real or imaginary people for] perhaps is not out of your reach and you can just start doing it.

[-]lsusr20d30

you can just do things

―Sam Altman

[-]Mateusz Bagiński20d20

And yet snow is white.

[-]gwern24d165

I wouldn't wear a suit everywhere. I live on the West Coast of the USA, which is very casual. That makes wearing a suit a fashion statement. If I wore a suit in Japan, then it wouldn't look like I'm making a fashion statement. It would look like I just got off of work and didn't have time to change.

Demonstrating that wearing a suit in some contexts is a thing you can't countersignal. I'm reminded of the classic Onion article, "Why Can't Anyone Tell I'm Wearing This Business Suit Ironically?"

[-]lsusr24d51

Japan is different from the USA and Europe because they have two sartorial lineages: a native one and a Western one. While it's not possible to counter-signal with a suit in Japan, I feel the equivalent would be to wear traditional clothing like a samue or jinbei, which have their own set of challenges.

That Onion article is savage. It's hard to imagine any culture and circumstance where wearing a business suit ironically would work. That said, I did successfully wear a suit ironically once. It was part of a running joke someone else started.

[-]gwern4d70

While it's not possible to counter-signal with a suit in Japan, I feel the equivalent would be to wear traditional clothing like a samue or jinbei, which have their own set of challenges.

Yep. It can be pretty funny watching the contexts in which you can get away with a happi coat or a kimono/yukata; I can only speak from Japanese media rather than personal experience, but one thing I've noticed is that it seems a non-retired man wearing a kimono can still get away with it today as long as they are a sufficiently accomplished humanist or literary scholar (but not STEM). It reminds me of the 'tweed jacket' professor archetype here: you can still get away with wearing a tweed jacket with leather patches etc, but you'd better be a professor or a novelist or something of that ilk if you don't want to be quietly judged for it.

[-]lsusr20d30

Another option is to go full Victorian, with coattails and a top hat.

[-]Christian Z R23d122

I did the same during my last year of high school and first year in university! I even got a second hand trouser press so I could make sure the creases were sharp.

However, I stopped it in the end. I think most observers thought I was either some sort of neoreactionary or just a plain weirdo. Almost nobody asked me why I was wearing it (this was Scandinavia, so pretty normal to not ask other people why they are doing weird things. We are a bunch of quiet, private people). At some point I realized I was using mental energy by the entire thing, being less able to relax in social situations.

Then, I changed to wearing a shirt + sweater + tweed jacket, with slightly longer hair and more stubble. This still gave me a certain style satisfaction, but in more muted way. And finally, by now, I always just dress to stand out as little as possible, since I have found that not thinking about my own appearance gives me more energy for interacting socially with others. Also, after having been in full dress to a couple of renaisance fairs, I started realizing that modern people are actually doing a lot of work to make sure they all wear period appropriate clothing, and it started to seem that me not doing so was like a reenactor putting a 14th century houbbelande on when everyone else was wearing 15th century clothing.

[-]Cole Wyeth24d120

I wore a suit for all of high school. At some point everyone expected me to wear a suit and if I didn't I'd never hear the end of it. The first time I wore a t-shirt there was practically a riot. Unfortunately, I got so tired of conversations regarding the fact that I was or wasn't wearing a suit that escaping to college was a massive relief - now I practically never do it.

[-]romeostevensit23d60

Waistcoat and rolled up sleeves works in many more settings and still looks amazing.

[-]lsusr23d20

A waistcoat is my favorite attire for social dancing.

[-]CasioTheSane23d50

Interesting, thanks for sharing. I am also on the west coast, and wear wide brimmed hats (usually cowboy hats), which is somewhat unusual and many of the people comment on it, complement it, or ask me about it.

The truth is, I'm not really trying to make a fashion statement, I'm just bald and don't want to get cancer on my head... and this hat design is uniquely functional in that it blocks the sun, doesn't blow off in the wind, and doesn't look incredibly dorky and non-breathable like the nylon sun hats they sell at REI. Yet people make a big deal about it and the social dynamics of peoples reactions are confusing and surprising to me.

The social reactions are interesting... I am shy and introverted, so it ends up being a good ice breaker, as people approach me about the hat frequently, and they notice and remember me a lot more readily. I have (rarely) had some really negative reactions, usually also from very leftist people that say the hat made them assume I was a "conservative piece of ****" or something along those lines, and were very surprised I didn't fit that stereotype after talking to me. I very often get asked the exact same thing word for word: "I love your hat, where did you get it?" Yet those people are almost always already choosing to not wear hats, and I assume don't and won't actually buy and wear a hat, so I am a little confused about this question. My best guess is that they are trying to complement my style while qualifying that they aren't trying to 'hit' on me.

[-]cubefox23d0-1

A lot of people find wearing fancy hats "cringe". If you didn't get negative feedback, that may be because people don't want to be rude.

[-]CasioTheSane23d116

As I mentioned, I do actually sometimes get negative feedback from people, but overall the effect is positive, because it causes people to interact with me spontaneously when I have trouble initiating social interactions, and I've made quite a few good friends just from that. Being polarizing is way better than being neutral for meeting people and making friends. I also suspect being avoided by a person that would negatively judge someone they don't know just for wearing a hat is probably also a positive thing. It's a functional thing I need because I'm bald with pale skin and spend a lot of time outdoors in a sunny climate, so people that think that is "cringe" are most likely not nice people. I didn't choose to be bald, or sun sensitive, and haven't found anything else that works as well- and trust me I tried because I felt very awkward about wearing a noticeable hat at first. I would liken that to thinking eyeglasses, a wheelchair, or a cane are cringe.

Once I was publically mocked by a group of guys in eastern Europe (Czech Republic) that thought it was hilarious that I was probably a local, trying to dress like an American cowboy or something. It made their day, and mine when I responded verbally with an American accent, and they started apologizing and laughing.

[-]lsusr23d62

Being polarizing is way better than being neutral for meeting people and making friends.

This is really important. If I meet 100 people and make 1 really good friend, then it doesn't matter whether the other 99 like me or not. Being polarizing helps filter for the small number of people I want to talk to.

It's can also be fun to play into American stereotypes overseas. It's not everyday that a Czechian gets to meet an authentic American cowboy. I much prefer that look to the generic sloppy baseball cap + T-shirt.

[-]Laetum16d40

Zelenski's answer to why he wasn't wearing a suit in the Oval office could have been better if he said...

"Because flak jackets don't fit as quickly over top of a suit.."

[-]Anonymous24d41

if you get into fashion there is a whole range of expression with suits. with the right cut and materials, you can wear a suit, which looks great as suits ought to, yet is clearly casual and even in Japan would never be perceived as "for work". expensive hobby but if you're already doing this, might as well get into it.

[-]Algon24d40

You can also just wear a blazer if you don't want to go full Makima. A friend of mine did that and I liked it. So I copied it. But alas I've grown bigger-boned since I stopped cycling for a while after my car-accident. So my Soon I'll crush my skeleton down to a reasonable size, and my blazer will fit once more.

Side note, but what do you make of Chainsaw Man 2? I'm pretty disappointed by it all round, but you notice unusual features of the world relative to me, so maybe you see something good in it that I don't.

[-]lsusr24d20

Just a blazer is a more conventional solution to this problem. Personally, I like how unified it looks to use a matching fabric for blazer and pants.

What do you mean Chainsaw Man 2? Do you mean Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc? I've only watched the regular anime season, plus read the English translation of the manga. I'm loving Asa Mitaka's story.

[-]Algon24d40

The Asa Mitaka manga.

[-]lsusr24d41

I think what makes Chainsaw Man great is that the characters are dangerous, insane, and relatable. What really sold me on Asa Mitaka's story was Asa's conversation with Yuko about the murder. Asa's story has strengths and weaknesses compared to Denji's. I much prefer that over a retread of the original Chainsaw Man story.

I feel the whole aquarium arc was genius, especially the ending. But to understand it on all the different levels requires knowing that the beginning of the aquarium date, where Asa lectures about fish, is a riff on the aquarium date scene from Rent-A-Girlfriend.

[-]Algon24d20

Asa's story started fairly strong, and I enjoyed the first 10 or so chapters. But as Asa was phased out of the story, and it focused more on Denji, I felt it got worse. There were still a few good moments, but it's kinda spoilt the rest of the story, and even Chainsaw Man for me. Denji feels like a caricature of himself. Hm, writing this, I realize that it isn't that I dislike most of the components of the story. It's really just Denji.

EDIT: Anyway, thanks for prompting me to reflect on my current opinion of Asa Mitaka's story, or CSM 2 as I think of it. I don't think I ever intended that to wind up as my cached-opinion. So it goes.

[-]lsusr24d20

Denji is indeed a caricature of himself, both diagetically and metaphorically. I believe this is a deliberate metatextual self-reference to how popular Chainsaw Man has gotten in the real world.

[-]Cognitive Revolutionary 23d30

most of the limits we place on ourselves are self-imposed. Wimsey is the breaking of those bonds

[-]cboingo16d20

That you Lex?

[-]lsusr15d20

Lex Luthor or Lex Fridman?

[-]AlphaAndOmega23d10

I'd wear a suit more often if dry-cleaning wasn't a hassle. Hmm.. I should check if machine washable suits are a thing.

At least in the UK, suits have become a rarity in medical professionals. You do see some consultants wear them, but they're treated as strictly optional and nobody will complain about showing up with just a shirt and chinos. I'm keeping my suits nearly folded for the next conference I need to attend, I've got no excuse to wear them otherwise (that warrants the hassle IMO).

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