It will HARD flext on the social media channels from today. What "flexing" actually means? It doesn't mean cutting up a steel pipe while producing a lot of sparks with a so-called angle grinder (colloquially known as a "flex"). It means showing off one's accomplishments, possessions, etc., and trying to create a certain status for oneself with others. And it is exactly this phenomenon that we, Niels and Sebastian, wanted to get to the bottom of today as a tag team.
Why do people flex at all? Some would see it as a "disease of modern society". Well, the reasons for buying an expensive and luxurious car are no different today than they were many years or decades ago, for example, to buy an expensive horse or a sprawling estate. It's about status, recognition and "being worth something" in the eyes of others.
From our own life experience and especially from social media, we know this urge to show off all too well. It is often difficult not to slip into this competition and compare ourselves with others. For example, we both treated ourselves to a nice car each as a result of our fruitful work as self-employed people.
However, we haven't really made much of a fuss about it on social media and don't post a post every day featuring our cart.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with material possessions and enjoying them, and we both enjoy our excellent automobiles very much. However, as soon as it becomes just about using possessions to impress others, things get awkward. The same is true for iPhones, muscles, knowledge and all the other things we like to decorate "the plumage of our ego" with in order to be "better" than others.
In the podcast, we also put together a little ranking of how you might rank the various FLEX goods. After all, almost anyone can take out a loan and then buy a fancy car, etc. The value of this - and above all the gain in quality of life through it - is very questionable if we are therefore indispensably chained to our job for the next 5 years, and perhaps even start a sideline, just because of the FLEX goods purchased on credit.
For this we also gave the blatant counter-examples in the podcast, such as our mutual mentor and customer Sedat Aktas from GEILE WEINE. Simply the "super-humble-est" guy and at the same time hardcore successful in his business. He would have the bragging and FLEXING rights, but always reflects on the essentials in his life - hats off to him!
We hope that through the podcast you can take a new perspective on IG FLEXING and all the associated mental states of inferiority in the face of almost unattainable social ranks. The externals and material superficialities have no "real" added value in themselves (we are not talking about monetary value here). That value is created only by our own emotional response and society's perception of that object.
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