What if Ur Inside Jokes Cost $100K?

Exploring shifts in status/hierarchy following the "assumed" democratization of natural diamonds in the wake of lab-grown's cultural rise

Cut, Color, Size, and Clarity. For centuries, Good Diamonds have signaled wealth — a fixed status thrust upon the wearer just for having a fat rock on her finger. Then lab diamonds entered stage left and attempted to Thanos snap the natural diamond industry by way of democratization….

I’ve observed the following logic on lab-grown (IRL, on social media, traditional media, etc.): if you could buy a pristine 4ct oval for, say, 50% less…. and go unnoticed by most trained and untrained eyes….. what utility is there to consume a natural diamond? Taking things a step further, if EVERYONE now has access to the same cut, color, size, and clarity…. how do natural diamonds retain value and prestige? Therefore, by democratizing natural diamonds via lab, are we also democratizing (aka equally distributing) the status of the wearer?

But…..dare I say, we keep having the wrong conversations. Necessary at first, but context has evolved, and with that, continuing to ask “whether or not natural diamonds have fallen to lab-grown” means that we miss the root of the iceberg: tracking the migration of status. If status truly left natural diamond’s side, then sure, raise the white flag. However (and I’m fully aware that this may piss some ppl off), status never migrated away from natural diamonds, it just covertly shifted within. Let’s talk —