Of course they are a cultural status symbol.

That said, mountainous forest work is obviously a more prominent use case in the alps than it is in the US.

US trucks that are owned by individuals are not primarily seen as tools. 70% of US truck owners have only one vehicle, so their primary purpose is to be used as a luxury barge and family hauler. Not much different than the huge cars that Americans preferred to drive in the 1950s and 1970s. There has always been a thread of huge cruiser style vehicles in American auto culture and this continues today.

When it comes to work, towing capacity and generic American suburbia workloads tend to dominate (large houses with big projects, longer drives, etc).

Not saying that these tanks are a "practical choice", but they are perhaps better viewed through the lens of luxury barges.

Hunting is a good point, but from what I've gleaned it's a subculture that sort of stands alone and has a huge "gear" component. I think that it's somewhat common to have small specialized vehicles for that use case, like ATV style vehicles of various sorts. Ex: last time I was in North Carolina I saw someone with this dune buggy thing suited for that... and it was being hauled around behind a massive truck, naturally. Off-roading and hunting culture also overlaps a bit, and there is a legitimate off-road culture that is quite separate from the Big Truck culture. These people will often have two vehicles, so the Big Truck would be used for the aforementioned luxury cruising and status, while as you said, a more suitable vehicle is used for the actual rough terrain.

They do have a fairly unique status power in much of the US. If a small business owner drives up in a sports car, they may get jokes, but for some reason driving up in a new GMC 2500HD is sort of seen as a mark of a "working man's success" instead of being flashy and showing off. It's something you can drive up and meet clients without about how you are going to look. That said, I'm speaking from experience in southern and midwest culture, but that's where the majority of the US population lives. When I was in New York you would see these monster trucks much less often, and as you said the driver was often much more ostentatious I'm trying to flagrantly stand out rather than subtly rise above without getting called out as one does in the midwest.

Thanks for shining a light on this for me, helps me follow the line of thought, especially your part about how it is seen as a sign of success to own a specific new car etc.

Most urbanite Gen Z students I teach don't have (need) driving license and don't plan to get one. Owning a car is somewhat a useless luxury in most European bigger cities, since you're much faster and more comfortable with bicycles and public transport anyways. The occasional family trip or bigger transport can be done with a rental or car sharing, if public transport doesn't cut it. This results in the car being seen much less as a status symbol, except for certain migrantic or economically strained subcultures. But you won't be able to impress your say average Berlin Techno-girl with a flashy car, in fact it would likely achieve the opposite effect.

Where I live hunting isn't really that much of a sport, more a mix between a regular job, a hobby and tradition. So while there is expensive gear (hand-engraved traditional guns that sell for the price of a luxury car), most people just use whatever. From what I have seen in the US hunting (like literally everytbing else) is much more gear-focused over there.