VIP

Everyone wants to feel important, don't they? Everyone wants to carry weight in the mind of others. It's just something all people desire. No one wants to be perceived as unimportant (although there are a few folks who are so good at it, you have to wonder if they're actually aiming for insignificance). Feeling important is important.

But, oh, throw the adverb "very" in front of "important" and it's a whole new ballgame. It's like a phrase that signifies an echelon sought by most but attainable to few. Once the "very" is tacked on, "important" is no longer a feeling but a social status. People lose their friggin' sense for it.

Very Important People require very important things -- like very important areas, very important entrances, and very important company. An insecure state of mind needs such reaffirmations.

Take red carpets and velvet ropes -- they're hardly just tacky cinema décor or items that can be found next to the zebra-print couch in your sleazy bachelor pad brimming with polyester and shag. Lord, no, they're segregators of privilege, showcases of rank. They snobbishly declare that you, Mr. Tall-Dark-and-Handsome, may step right this way, but please step aside, Mr. Bland-Scruffy-and-Mediocre.

Maybe the most quizzical dimension of this notion of VIP is that the value in being held in VIP regard isn't found in what you get to eat, where you get to sit, or where you're allowed to park, but instead the access to those things. You know, just the fact that you have a privilege that others can merely observe but not partake. That faaaaar outweighs all the bestowed "betters" -- the better tastes, the better views, the better service, etc. People want that social status imprinted across their forehead, large and legible for all to read and recognize. That's the point of VIP: not what you get but what you feel.

A perfect example: At any given professional sports team facility, there's at least one bar or area of bars that's reserved strictly for ticketholders deemed VIP. Those tickets are hot sales -- who doesn't want to be part of the ultra limited inclusion of invitees to the guarded bar? And then walk in there and find what? That, well, it's a bar -- a bar with dimmer lighting, slightly sleeker wall fixtures, stringy copper plants that aren't really plants, and higher-priced beer. The big win here? That I have access and you don't. Cool, thanks for the admission.

The V, the I, and the P are just marketing tactics, guys. The allure is fictionalized. I've been behind the velvet ropes and the tinted doors before -- the food ain't that much tastier. Sure, the interior design is less IKEA and there are fewer peopleofwalmart.com patrons inside, but all you bought was a fleeting state of mind that essentially means nothing.

I guess it's all in what you classify as important. And very important.