This may be coming hard from my particular beliefs, but I think its a byproduct of diversification efforts bearing fruit. It used to be all white dudes or non-white dudes playing the white dude game. I think the diversity of people in visible traits has encouraged diversity in viewpoints and norms and whatever. It's much easier to play your own game when it's 1v1v1v1v1v1 instead of 4v1. Norms are softer. And that's good.

There's definitely some sort of anti-materialism cultural movement. I don't know how to judge the instagram status game. It's big, and growing, but it's also totally optional. You don't come off as a low status individual if you don't even have an instagram account to the same degree as someone who walks in with a non-professional looking pair of shoes.

If nobody knows what my insta-status is (as a non user), and I don't know what anyone else's is... is it really a good measure of status or is it just kind its own thing? Aside from the top few percent of individuals who are basically professional social media players, I'm not sure insta-fame amounts to much more than being a guild master in a particularly popular MMORPG. Kind of cool but hardly universal.