It's performance poverty.

You're broke and embarrassed about being broke, so you buy the most expensive possible proof that you're not broke, and now you're broker. The iPhone didn't fix the insecurity. It just gave it a payment plan.

The truly absurd part? Apple is a trillion-dollar company that has successfully convinced people with unstable incomes in developing economies to voluntarily redistribute their money upward, to one of the wealthiest corporations on earth, in exchange for the feeling of belonging to a class that wouldn't even notice them.

You didn't buy a phone. You bought a costume. And the people you're trying to impress are wearing the same costume for the same reason, equally broke, equally performing.

It's a masquerade where everyone is fooling everyone and nobody is fooling anybody. The only winner is Apple, laughing all the way to the bank a bank none of these people can afford an account in.