People judge everyone by the way they manipulate symbols. Words are symbols, and so are clothes and cars and schools your children go to, and hell, political views are symbols. Everything means something else besides what it means on the surface.
What you make of the symbols depends on what “language” you speak. If you speak creativity, then consumption symbols will be annoying. If you speak money, consumption symbols count for a log. Often times, those “without” will pooh-pooh the symbols of those “with.” They might change their tune when they become “with.” This is called “selling out.”
We’re tribal animals; social animals; and status is extremely important in our lives. We use all kinds of cues to sort ourselves out in the pecking order, but it is a shifting landscape and everyone has a different point of view.
If the people you hang out with assess each other based on ability to consume, that’s the way it is. I’m sure you know that that’s not the only way it is. For example, where I come from, there are a lot of people who are wealthy, but do their best to be very quiet about it. They even demean themselves, and humble themselves with their spending habits, because they might not believe it’s nice to rub your status in the face of someone with less status. There are even very wealthy people who live in poverty, and when they die, everyone is surprised that they’ve left millions to this or that organization.
I would caution anyone to make assumptions about what consumption symbols actually mean. They might mean you are dealing with a shallow person. Or a greedy person. Or a braggart. They don’t necessarily indicate a person who understands and appreciates quality. Similarly, shabby clothes and a car with 150K miles on it don’t necessarily indicate poverty or a lack of education.
Cars and money are the measure of some people. Some people value these things. For others, they measure little of importance about a person. If you are sick of people who measure themselves this way, then look around. There are millions of places where people who have other values hang out.