# In your eyes, what kind of stuff is pretentious? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 6, 2008, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-eyes-what-kind-of-stuff-is-pretentious/466625 "2008-10-06T02:31:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![gurujulp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ba9def/32.png) [@gurujulp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gurujulp)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-eyes-what-kind-of-stuff-is-pretentious/466625/101 "2008-10-08T21:23:29Z")
> [@amelioration](#): > > When the author of some academic literary essay in a genre theory textbook writes this: “Retheorization of the proliferation of distinctions reflecting the underlying dynamic of cultural modernity…” and then decides to quote passages of French literature, and _doesn’t bother to translate them…_ THAT is pretentious. > > P.S. I did NOT make that sentence up. > > P.S.S. Also on my list of pretentious people? Mac users. 😛 OOoooo I wonder if you are quoting a friend of mine- her undergrad thesis was something along the lines of “Studying the trends of changes in French and Polish literature in the face of the Emerging Globalization of the world’s economy”, and IIRC, she didn’t translate her quotes… ---
**Author:** ![gurujulp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ba9def/32.png) [@gurujulp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gurujulp)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-eyes-what-kind-of-stuff-is-pretentious/466625/102 "2008-10-08T21:29:46Z")
> [@incidental](#): > > People who spend weeks configuring Linux, and then bitch publicly about how difficult Vista is to use. The system may be buggy, but it’s sure not difficult to use. True! I had to give up on my Linux, as I couldn’t find one (1) driver, and everything else worked perfectly- it was an important one (wireless) and I am not enough of a snob to spend the time to learn how to write it… but I still think that while Vista has never been buggy for me, it is built intentionally to obscure the location of many simple setting options, and I hate it! But my daughter loves all the simple media options. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-eyes-what-kind-of-stuff-is-pretentious/466625/103 "2008-10-08T21:31:22Z")
Oh, and my favorite bumper fish is the [gefilte fish](http://www.northernsun.com/images/thumb/2220.jpg). ---
**Author:** ![Hazle\_Weatherfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Hazle\_Weatherfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hazle_Weatherfield)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-eyes-what-kind-of-stuff-is-pretentious/466625/104 "2008-10-08T21:47:11Z")
People who look down their noses at white wines. Why the hate/snobbery? I’ve never gotten it. There are just as many bad reds and good whites. Why is white wine seen as “lower class?” ---
**Author:** ![gurujulp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ba9def/32.png) [@gurujulp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gurujulp)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-eyes-what-kind-of-stuff-is-pretentious/466625/105 "2008-10-08T21:52:54Z")
> [@pravnik](#): > > [Flying Spaghetti Monster](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster). Make sure you pronounce it “spa-GEH-tee,” not “spuh-GETTY” like the tourists. 😉 Thanks! I pronounce it, “Chef Boy-AHR-dee”- I have always loved that slimy crap, although it has absolutely no relation to spuh-GETTY or spa-GEH-tee… ---
**Author:** ![Freejooky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ba8739/32.png) [@Freejooky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freejooky)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2008, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-eyes-what-kind-of-stuff-is-pretentious/466625/106 "2008-10-08T23:26:07Z")
A major source of pretense in my book is people intellectualizing things that are otherwise lowbrow or uncomplicated enough to warrant such overthinking. This sort of goes hand-in-hand with intellectual slumming and academic irony - that is, when you find people getting really, really into analyzing different beers with the same sincerity as wine tasters or writing graduate theses on old grindhouse kung fu movies with the same gravity as James Joyce. It’s a way of saying “I’m so above the accepted highbrow things that I’m finding the TRUE GENIUS in this piece of lowbrow detritus!” I was friends with a couple who recently invited me to a salsa tasting with accompanying nacho flight, along the lines of a wine and cheese tasting. Uhh, no. ---
**Author:** ![Unsquare\_Dance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b3f665/32.png) [@Unsquare\_Dance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unsquare_Dance)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2008, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-eyes-what-kind-of-stuff-is-pretentious/466625/107 "2008-10-09T17:14:32Z")
People who are “too good” to like a Will Ferrell movie or a cheesy movie like _Big Trouble in Little China_. I like the same artsy, independent cinema you do, but I’m not made of steel. If you just don’t like it, that’s cool, but don’t hold in a laugh just so everyone will think you’re high class. People who still debate over what operating system you use. Hello and welcome to 2008, where most people use Windows and really don’t care what you think. I say this as someone who is regularly associated with such snobs, because I use OS X and Linux. But really, I don’t care. Use what you like, and what’s comfortable for you. People who still think of Nintendo as “kiddie games” or call all console gaming stupid. I would also like to take this opportunity to welcome you to 2008. Where have you been? People who take part in the “omg boycott EA” crap. Seriously, this is a business, just like the music industry and the film industry. What exactly do you want? For everyone to hold hands and get along? I will agree they have done some shitball things, but I’m not going to boycott the games. People who believe there’s a science-fiction canon, and that you’re a useless human being and NOT A TRUE FAN OF SCI-FI if you haven’t read/don’t like/haven’t finished some book they think is so important. You should read books because you like them, not because someone told you to like them. People who name-drop famous authors in conversation when it totally isn’t relevant. “So I bought this new laundry detergent and it works great.” “Oh yes, because as Byron once wrote…” Seriously, shut your gob. People who regularly make fun of hicks and hillbillies because they think it makes them superior. Saying things like “ugh, white trash people who like NASCAR and shop at Walmart” makes you look like a snob. People who, and this is a real quote, believe that “there is nothing south of Chicago. Southern Illinois is a shithole.” Shove it. Really. Phew, I think I’m done. ---
**Author:** ![Hazle\_Weatherfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Hazle\_Weatherfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hazle_Weatherfield)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2008, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-eyes-what-kind-of-stuff-is-pretentious/466625/108 "2008-10-09T18:14:53Z")
Seriously, Southern Illinois is gorgeous. Garden of the Gods, Cave-in-Rock? Helllooooo? ---
**Author:** ![overlyverbose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9dc877/32.png) [@overlyverbose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/overlyverbose)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2008, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-eyes-what-kind-of-stuff-is-pretentious/466625/109 "2008-10-09T18:25:00Z")
> [@Hazle\_Weatherfield](#): > > People who look down their noses at white wines. Why the hate/snobbery? I’ve never gotten it. There are just as many bad reds and good whites. Why is white wine seen as “lower class?” Same for blush wines or wines that happen to be sweet. There are a lot of high quality sweet wines and/or wines that fall somewhere between red and white. Some of my family are huge wine snobs. My cousin has a special locked wine refrigerator and will insist on choosing the wine for family gatherings from his special stock. He’ll also nag us for not drinking wine at the right temperature in the correct glass without letting it breathe if necessary. There’s a reason we call him the wine nazi. It’s irritating as hell. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2008, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-eyes-what-kind-of-stuff-is-pretentious/466625/110 "2008-10-09T18:49:54Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > The 80s called. They want their pretentiousness back. In all fairness, I’ve noticed the trend has spread from Ralph Lauren (Polo horse) and Izon now Lacoste (aligator) to other brands like Abercrombie & Fitch (moose), American Eagle (an Eagle obviously), Hollister (some kind of duck or something). In a stroke of marketing genius, Ralph Lauren has gone from the small discreet logo to cartoonishly large logos on their clothes. You know. Just to make sure EVERYONE knows you’re a D-bag. I find the whole Hollister / Abercrombie thing pretentious. I went into one of those stores and it’s like someone in marketing said “make this store look like someplace Ernest Hemmingway would shop…if he was gay…(er?). I want fucking moose heads and canoes and loud house music and pictures of really good looking kids dressed like homeless people. And they should look like they surf or go camping or play in innertubes in the lake on Ole’ Farmer O’Douchebaggins place or some shit!” ---
**Author:** ![ChadVader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7ba0ec/32.png) [@ChadVader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChadVader)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2008, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-eyes-what-kind-of-stuff-is-pretentious/466625/111 "2008-10-09T19:05:44Z")
Men who watch or talk about sports just to keep their “man card”. Or so they will actually have something to talk about around the guys. Women who watch or talk about sports just so they can say they watch sports. Yes, now you’re a unique little snowflake. People who think they’re too intelligent to enjoy “dumb” movies/humor. Yes the actors are being dumb but the joke writers are anything but. People who think a sitcom about intelligent people makes the writing intelligent (see Frasier or The Big Bang Theory). These are very stereotypical sitcoms that require no brain process to follow. If you want to see intelligent writing, watch Arrested Development or 30 Rock. ---
**Author:** ![overlyverbose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9dc877/32.png) [@overlyverbose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/overlyverbose)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2008, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-eyes-what-kind-of-stuff-is-pretentious/466625/112 "2008-10-09T19:28:29Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > I find the whole Hollister / Abercrombie thing pretentious. I went into one of those stores and it’s like someone in marketing said “make this store look like someplace Ernest Hemmingway would shop…if he was gay…(er?). I want fucking moose heads and canoes and loud house music and pictures of really good looking kids dressed like homeless people. And they should look like they surf or go camping or play in innertubes in the lake on Ole’ Farmer O’Douchebaggins place or some shit!” That reminds me - do all Abercrombie stores smell like the walls were washed in cologne, or is that just the ones in St. Louis? Every time I walk by the one near me, I smell that cologne in my hair for about an hour afterward. ---
**Author:** ![cowgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@cowgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cowgirl)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2008, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-eyes-what-kind-of-stuff-is-pretentious/466625/113 "2008-10-09T20:15:05Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > But I’d stab myself in the liver before I would ever pronounce _Versailles_ as “ver-sales”. And lest you think this wouldn’t come up much, there is a street by that name in a nearby town in the Bay Area and most ( though not all ) locals do indeed pronounce it “ver-sales”. Every time I hear it I want to claw off my ears. It sounds _wrong_ to me. Here in Toronto (which we pronounce along the lines of “Teronna”) there is a street called Roncesvalles (pronounced RONCE-ess-vayles) and an area called Agincourt (pronounced AGE-in-kort). These pronunciations make me want to claw my ears off too, definitely. But nobody would understand you if you used the French pronunciations. I once lived in a city with a street called Toronto Street, pronounced “to-RONT-o.” Nobody understood me when I pronounced it correctly. ---
**Author:** ![badbadrubberpiggy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/57b2e6/32.png) [@badbadrubberpiggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/badbadrubberpiggy)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2008, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-eyes-what-kind-of-stuff-is-pretentious/466625/114 "2008-10-09T20:19:21Z")
> [@overlyverbose](#): > > That reminds me - do all Abercrombie stores smell like the walls were washed in cologne, or is that just the ones in St. Louis? Every time I walk by the one near me, I smell that cologne in my hair for about an hour afterward. I’m in St. Louis, too. Try walking by the Hollister at the Galleria first thing in the AM when the mall opens, and they’re cooking bacon in the food court. Bacon Cologne is possibly the foulest smell on the face of this planet. And it doesn’t come off. ---
**Author:** ![Unsquare\_Dance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b3f665/32.png) [@Unsquare\_Dance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unsquare_Dance)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2008, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-eyes-what-kind-of-stuff-is-pretentious/466625/115 "2008-10-09T20:33:01Z")
> [@Hazle\_Weatherfield](#): > > Seriously, Southern Illinois is gorgeous. Garden of the Gods, Cave-in-Rock? Helllooooo? I know! It kills me, because these people have obviously never set foot outside of Chicago or its suburbs. I love Chicago, but man… I love all of Illinois equally. Plus, we got Superman down here. 🆒 > [@badbadrubberpiggy](#): > > I’m in St. Louis, too. > > Try walking by the Hollister at the Galleria first thing in the AM when the mall opens, and they’re cooking bacon in the food court. > > Bacon Cologne is possibly the foulest smell on the face of this planet. And it doesn’t come off. That Hollister is almost especially stinky to me, but I’ve heard that they all smell like Drakkar. I don’t know. Either way, it’s downright nasty. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2008, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-eyes-what-kind-of-stuff-is-pretentious/466625/116 "2008-10-09T20:36:03Z")
> [@Unsquare\_Dance](#): > > People who, and this is a real quote, believe that “there is nothing south of Chicago.” Really. The correct quote should be “There is nothing east of Dallas.” Don’t these people know _anything_? ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2008, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-eyes-what-kind-of-stuff-is-pretentious/466625/117 "2008-10-09T20:37:21Z")
Using the word “methinks”, either spoken or typed. ---
**Author:** ![badbadrubberpiggy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/57b2e6/32.png) [@badbadrubberpiggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/badbadrubberpiggy)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2008, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-eyes-what-kind-of-stuff-is-pretentious/466625/118 "2008-10-09T20:43:29Z")
> [@Unsquare\_Dance](#): > > That Hollister is almost especially stinky to me, but I’ve heard that they all smell like Drakkar. I don’t know. Either way, it’s downright nasty. I’ve never even been in, because of that smell. The clothes aren’t my style, but even if they were perfect for me I don’t think I’d be able to stand it. ---
**Author:** ![Unsquare\_Dance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b3f665/32.png) [@Unsquare\_Dance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unsquare_Dance)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2008, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-eyes-what-kind-of-stuff-is-pretentious/466625/119 "2008-10-09T20:45:57Z")
> [@badbadrubberpiggy](#): > > I’ve never even been in, because of that smell. The clothes aren’t my style, but even if they were perfect for me I don’t think I’d be able to stand it. I could never fit into anything Hollister makes. My brother likes their pants, for some odd reason. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2008, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-eyes-what-kind-of-stuff-is-pretentious/466625/120 "2008-10-09T20:48:59Z")
Self-described foodies are pretentious in my opinion. They buy expensive condiments from trendy grocery stores and can’t cook a goddamned thing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-eyes-what-kind-of-stuff-is-pretentious/466625.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-eyes-what-kind-of-stuff-is-pretentious/466625.md?page=7)