Interesting essay here about contrarianism and its temptations.

TLDR: While ostentatiously displaying socially approved attitudes (especially attitudes approved of by the in-group but not by the wider society) can be a form of status display, refusing to do so can be even more so a status display. I remember I famer I knew who was so rich he dressed like a hobo (dirty ragged clothes, in the pocket of which he kept a couple of hundred thousand in cash).

http://lesswrong.com/lw/2pv/intellectual_hipsters_and_metacontrarianism/

Tim