#124: Social gating functions
July 12, 2023; 16 min ramble
[Caddyshack, 1980]
I happened to be reading this paper on “Genetic Determinants of Gating Functions: Do We Get Closer to Understanding Schizophrenia Etiopathogenesis?” and came across this highlighted sentence*:
“It has been suggested that gating represents a filtering mechanism, preventing distraction and sensory overload, or a protective mechanism, securing uninterrupted processing of stimuli.”
[* actually I just searched for “gating functions” and that was the first thing that came up. I still find the quote useful.]
This, naturally, made me wonder about (social) gating functions in general, and what role they play in our lives. In this piece I’ll restrict my thoughts to consumption and social gating, rather than more complex situations like getting hired by a company, or entering a university, which generally adds the higher dimension of competency. The ability to stuff food in your mouth isn’t much of a competency filter, despite what the Instagrammers want you to believe.
The quote above discusses the importance of filtering things out in order to enable a more flow state — removing noise and distractions is appealing because we are constantly bombarded with tugs (pop-up ads!!) for our attention and behavior which detracts from the pure experience. A reasonably harmonic group, with a minimum of distractions, is conducive to the reliable provision of pleasant experiences. It reminds me of fluid dynamics, and the contrast between laminar flow and turbulent flow — more empirically known as the difference in pouring a wine bottle when it’s full (glug glug glug) and when there’s enough air coming in for the pour to be smooooth.
Restaurant gating
The social gating function in most restaurants is largely the willingness to pay, which seems reasonable if you consider restaurants are businesses and want to appeal to the widest possible set of customers, in order to maximize potential revenue and generate a consistent profit.
However, for restaurants which are in high demand, this becomes a problem. Microeconomics would suggest the obvious thing would be to raise prices, which would lower demand to some equilibrium (“volume trades to price” as we would say in finance). But constantly changing menu prices would be disruptive and unrealistic, so tables are largely first come first serve (even with reservation systems), but with some carve-outs for manager discretion (VIPs). Therefore, for most popular restaurants, the gating function is two-dimensional: willingness to pay, and first in line (demonstrating enthusiasm and perhaps patience).
For many modestly priced restaurants with high demand (those that have lines snaking around the block), I’m not sure there’s a better way to manage demand, other than opening more branches (increasing supply in order to meet demand) — I shall dub this the Din Tai Fung approach, after the Taiwanese soup dumpling franchise which continues to expand while maintaining amazingly consistent quality around the world. From the original location selling cooking oil in Taipei in 1958, the company now has over 100 branches worldwide, including 12 in Taiwan, 27 in Japan, and 13 in the United States. In the early 2000s, I used to plan my Saturdays around the first international branch in Shinjuku (Tokyo), making sure I got there a few minutes before it opened at 11am. Nowadays, they have a helpful online wait time monitor, presumably to manage wait time expectations and encourage people to come at less crowded time slots.
In the realm of high end restaurants, however, there appears to be a pronounced “wealthy asshole” effect, namely the idea that the ability to afford expensive meals often attracts entitled high maintenance pretentious assholes (did I leave out any relevant adjectives?). Recent popular movies like The Menu and Burnt, as well as a horde of food influencers have highlighted the fine dining scene and the profusion of lamentable characters, both at the table and in the kitchen.
Jiro’s nightmares
Fawning documentaries like Jiro Dreams of Sushi have driven demand for his once admirable (three Michelin star) Tokyo restaurant to stratospheric heights, where it is now completely overwhelmed with foreign influencers rather than regular locals. And this surge of demand has induced a number of effects:
Expectations from customers are driven by the movie, around the philosophy of the father — they are expecting to star in their own little Jiro movie (but the son has largely replaced the father, so even the cast is different)
The constraint of a mere ‘15 minutes for 19 dishes in monk-like silence’ is far from the standard of Japanese sushi hospitality. I asked another high demand sushi chef in Tokyo about this policy and he laughed, saying that they “we budget 90 minutes per customer, but sometimes they go longer, what can you do?”
The reviews suggest that the staff continues to get ruder as their demand remains high despite increasing rudeness
In 2019 Sukiyabashi Jiro was deleted from the Michelin guide because they no longer take general reservations — and not because the quality had deteriorated. I seem to recall (but I can’t find proof) that there have been other Tokyo restaurants which have been deleted from the list (as opposed to losing stars) for the same reason. The irony is that the Michelin effect produces a surge in popularity, leading to a decline in the quality of the average client and general atmosphere. Presumably this drastic measure was taken to bring customer quality back to standard, or perhaps just to reduce the number of incoming reservation requests.
General gating functions
The high end restaurant gating function is a subset of price control problems in economics where, for a variety of reasons, prices are not allowed to move to create a market equilibrium. Any situation where there is far greater demand than supply probably falls into this category, including event tickets (Taylor Swift, Wimbledon) where the ticket face value is a fraction of its real (StubHub) market value, rent controlled apartments, or taxi demand when it’s raining — for some reason people find equilibrium pricing unfair even if it’s economically rational – they’d rather wait for hours in line or allow allocations according to an arbitrary method.
Indirect gating
At a restaurant, dress codes are one kind of indirect gating function, because a strict dress code acts as a loose filter for the kinds of customer the establishment is trying to attract — not allowing athletic footwear or jeans or shorts sends a signal about ambiance expectations. Credit card deposits in some restaurants are another indirect gating function, in that they demonstrate a willingness to pay a penalty in case of cancellation; but I’m not sure that either of these indirect methods would act as a foolproof filter for wealthy assholes or oversharing food bloggers.
Explicit gating: inner circle
In Japan, as in the Jiro situation, eventually some chefs decide enough is enough and close reservations to the general public, because they are more than capable of surviving on their inner circle of regulars (and their trusted introductions). Many (small) Japanese restaurants have done this, and have plenty of demand even without the clucking flocks of Michelin star-starved fooderati. Comfortable in both the quality of their offering, as well as the breadth and loyalty of their customers, these (usually small) Japanese restaurants tend to have far better ambiance — hushed interactions suggest a long history and customers who are aware of the unique rituals and conventions of the service; chefs remember preferences, previous orders, pertinent personal details. Rather than an explicit menu, there are indications of what is fresh, and hints of what might be possible; the actual creation might arise from a brief conversation in culinary short-hand with the chef.
About two decades ago, I remember going to my favorite Tokyo sushi spot (still thriving), and some of the regulars were gently kidding the master about being featured for the first time ever in one of the local foodie magazines, somewhat bemused that their little secret would become wider public knowledge. This predictably resulted in an influx of notoriety and a surge in demand; eventually Michelin would discover it and predictably bestow a handful of stars, transforming our little gourmet hideaway into a well-documented public stomping ground (which the master at least partially regretted).
Club gating and social sets
The private club is a gated community of a sort — while a restaurant experience is a one-off, a club is more of a lifestyle choice. Like restaurants, it doesn’t really have much of a competency dimension, and for many clubs, there is enormous demand at whatever price point they have set: private clubs are useful examples of formal gating philosophy under price controls.
Some thoughts here, in no particular order:
The membership selection process for a private club (social, country club, golf/tennis, university, etc.) is essentially a complex gating function that regulates consumer access to its community.
There is an implicit benefit for managing the cluster because it promises to uphold a harmonious environment or shared values / interests, without the entropy of random riff-raff, while heightening the probability of enjoyable interactions with the ‘right people’ — the idea of pleasurable activities, but with the overlay of a controlled social environment, is key to the value proposition.
Club membership is one measure of individual self-branding, in that it signals to some extent what social set with whom deem worthy of association.
Although gating functions theoretically create a more harmonious atmosphere, if there are too few members or too little consumption, a club can get into serious financial difficulties; therefore they need to provide significant (apparent) value, while also charging significant subscription fees. The exclusive Marylebone Cricket Club dealt with COVID related revenue declines by selling lifetime memberships (essentially allowing rich impatient candidates to pay up to GBP80,000 for jumping the 29-year waiting list)
Because most clubs have initiation fees and minimum monthly spends, the club world is largely occupied by the wealthy. However, memberships are sometimes offered for other reasons, where the member would add more than money to the atmosphere, by being someone that others want to be around (pro golfers at golf clubs, for instance). I’m guessing Taylor Swift didn’t pay for her membership at Casa Cipriani that she recently gave up because other members broke the “no photos” rule.
Clubs come with a lot of rules. No cellphone use. Laptop limitations. Dress codes. Guest limits. Rules for having membership revoked. What to call the staff. They largely exist in the interest of maintaining the proper atmosphere, but some of the rules can seem quite arbitrary.
Sometimes the gating functions don’t result in the appropriate member ambiance: back to Casa Cipriani, they apparently have a problem that many people feel it’s just a playground for mobsters and half-naked girls looking for sugar daddies. But once you allow someone in (who meets the guidelines), it is difficult to throw them out if you subsequently decide that you made a mistake.
Generations can be hard to bridge — the ambiance and rules favored by one generation passively establishes a tone, but when the members of that generation begin to expire (requiring replacement members in order to maintain revenue), the generational difference in values and attitudes can make it difficult to attract younger members.
Personal experiences
I travel too often for a traditional social club to make sense for me (I rarely use a club that I joined in San Francisco). I’m a casual member at Soho House, a network of over 40 international clubs in major metropolises, making it very useful for someone of my itinerant nature, but without much of a feeling of social belonging.
I find the well-developed London and Hong Kong social club cultures fascinating, although I’ve never thought of applying for any (and they would find me unpalatable). In the US, the only clubs I’ve really considered were golf clubs, which usually have long waiting lists and require recommendations from people distant from my core networks. For me, the primary attraction of golf clubs would be less on the member ecosystem, and more on the basic golf experience — far nicer and less crowded than public courses.
Although I know some people whose social life is centered around their country club (and their kids around the pool), most of my friends who have memberships have mixed things to say — not great value given the cost and how little they use them is probably the most common issue. Since the cohort who can afford the expense are roughly my age, our generation is still too young for us to be running things, but have values which differ enough from the people who do. Perhaps it’s just a matter of time.
Soho House is supposed to have a creative vibe — finance bros are frowned upon, as are ties and formal meetings; I camouflaged my extensive finance experience with a thin veneer of film production in order to win admittance. Now that the Soho House management company has gone public (SHCO), there is probably more of an imperative to widen the membership base (although recent reports suggest a current waiting list of 89,000). I’d classify it as a very loose social club — there are half-hearted attempts to connect people, but I feel the overall vibe is people interacting with their own friend set.
I am slightly envious of people who have their club as a primary function in their social lives; certainly they go to meet their friends, but the curation process means they’re also likely to find a similarly sympathetic cohort. In the age of Tinder and other swipey connector apps where a seemingly infinite number of very low probability matches awaits, it’s comforting to think there are still social mechanisms where there is a reasonable chance of meeting someone who could be important in your future.
Post pandemic club demand
I’ve written about the importance of third spaces before, and COVID has increased the impulse to find places which are not home or work but which are familiar, welcoming, and social.
In New York and Los Angeles, for instance, there appears to be a marked rise in the advent of new clubs, each trying to discreetly attract the “right” kind of people (but where wealth is one of the measures of rightness). This rise in trendy club spaces (“Inventing Anna” Sorokin is apparently opening one in her home, complete with reality series coverage) feels short-sighted, more like the brief half-life of trendy nightclubs, than the old money businesses which might be boring, but boringly persist for decades.
Dynamic vs static gating
One of the usual drawbacks of social clubs is that gating typically happens only once (admission) and unless a member violates one of the major club rules, they are difficult to expel (which is also bad for the club’s reputation), hence the issues when, inadvertently, the wrong atmosphere has been created.
The Japanese inner circle method allows dynamic gating — for whatever reason, the proprietor can decide to put some distance between you; if you misbehave, or introduce someone who turns out to be not up to snuff, for instance, this might cause your judgment to be called into question, and you might be discreetly removed from the inner circle list. Therefore, you are incentivized to maintain a level of decorum, and exhort your friends to maintain a high standard of behavior, so that they might gain entrance (and perhaps be given the right to refer others). Sometimes, however, a different dynamic emerges — some inner circle clients offer incentives which are far above the usual standard — in the case of my sushi master, certain Hong Kong billionaires would offer to send their private jets to pick him up for one evening of world class sushi in their uber luxe Hong Kong aeries — it was hard for him to turn down, even if it meant reducing capacity in his restaurant for the time he was away — and it gave the rest of the inner circle a sense for how much passion and competition there was in other parts of his client base.
There is some frictional cost for dynamic gating, although if the churn rate is relatively low, then it could be easily managed. Without any expulsion mechanism, however, you run into the “one bad apple” problem, where one person or group could spoil the ambiance for a wider population, like screaming babies in business class on airplanes, so it’s important to have some mechanism to confidently excise emerging issues, even if it is rarely used.
For the proprietor, dynamic gating has an opportunity cost — they typically do not charge annual fees like private clubs, which could be considerable in aggregate, but it indirectly enhances the customer experience because it helps maintain order and best behaviors. Perhaps they should charge annual retainer fees, to defray the costs of dynamic gating and curating a harmonic environment. Certainly the retainer income would reduce revenue risk, and could help reduce table density and noise, both important dimensions of ambiance.
Inner circle dynamics
I can only wonder what it’s like to be a member of the Augusta National Golf Club (where the Masters is held annually), or, more appropriately because of my recent attendance at The Ashes: the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) — which moved to the current location of Lord’s because their original ground (White Conduit Fields) was open to the public and thus rowdy elements could watch and express their opinions on the quality of play — thus stimulating a physical gating function.
For some of the thoughtful members of ultra-exclusive clubs, perhaps there is some sense of “imposter privilege” – that arbitrary reasons rather than merit enabled their accession to one of the hallowed spots, though surely some will rationalize their modest talents and achievements as being worthy of these exalted positions.
Although I’m making a half-hearted case for the existence and necessity of private clubs, it is also true that many of them are bastions of (white) privilege and all the associated negative connotations. Are there examples of private ‘clubs’ where membership is meritocratic and outsiders don’t begrudge the members? The Royal Society? Les immortels de l’Académie Française? The Explorer’s Club? The Aspen Institute? Where do invite-only events like Davos, the Bilderberg meeting, and the Bohemian Grove fit in? I suppose ‘merit-based’ associations are a different kettle of fish than purely social connection clubs – or is social merit really a thing?
Groucho the curator
Perhaps the oblique counterpart of the oft-quoted quip of Groucho Marx (“I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member”) might be “I only want to be a member of a club that most people can’t join” — as social animals, the idea that we are members of exclusive inner circles is strangely seductive (recently discussed in my piece on airline loyalty programs). As a member of a (very) few inner circles, I am somewhat biased towards believing they are practical gating functions, even if I know I will be a permanent outsider of the vast majority of other inner circles.
While I am biased towards diverse social groups (ideally those which have been curated to some degree) over the homogenous echo chambers of a traditional club of members with predictably similar backgrounds, there is a necessary tension between familiarity / homogeneity on one hand, and diversity / heterogeneity on the other. A group where everyone knows each other is repetitive, a group where no one knows each other is socially daunting and chaotic – the sweet spot is somewhere in the middle.
Hence the argument for curation, an often thankless task which is easy to criticize because it’s impossible to satisfy everyone. That said, our uncurated experiences can be so uninspiring that any measure of curation can create value by raising the standard of interaction and reducing the energy-absorbing cadmium-like elements. In Europe, curated salons were nerve centers to those societies from the 16th to 19th centuries, allowing for the rapid exchange of ideas in a non-digital world. Salons, like Proust’s immortal Mme Verdurin, were usually curated by women – their central convening role gave them considerable power, as well as broad informal educations.
I suppose higher order dimensions could be more useful as gating functions — certainly it is possible to have member diversity around certain interests (books, music, art, sports, etc.) or sports — though it would add complexity to the curation process.
I’ve often dreamed of a discreet club for book aficionados where prospects would undergo a casual but detailed interview where they discussed what they had been reading with a few members, and what they would contribute to a society of bookworms. I recently heard about a Japanese watch brand which requires prospective buyers to apply for a purchase, apparently describing their watch history / philosophy; the company decides who is worthy enough to gain the right to buy one. It’s a little extreme, but as they say, you’ve gotta fight for your right, to be an uncompensated brand ambassador.
Final thoughts
I have no illusions that I’ve cleared anything up, except for introducing the world of gating functions and curated social groups. The impulse and desire for gating functions is common, but implementation is complicated and fraught with unintended consequences and minefields, both from the outside as well as from within.
My larger point is that despite its difficulties and side effects, social curation is useful, desirable, and probably underrated for the quality of experience that it enables.
======================
Last word: my first book!
A huge shout out to my dear friend Tomas, who assembled the first 100 issues of Crisis on Varia into a 500 page hard-bound volume (but only one copy, sorry), complete with QR-code access for each article. Seeing my varied rants collected into a single volume reinforces the eventual desire to complete a published work – and moves me closer to my stated goal of writing as a primary activity by the end of 2023.
