I agree with all of these and add the fashion poser. Yesterday my sister and her family came to my kid’s football came. It was kind of wet outside and the first thing she said to me was, “Normally I wouldn’t wear a sneaker with a non-athletic pant, but the weather called for it today.” She was wearing jeans. When I laughed she explained it was very housewifey to do so.
Meanwhile, since when would she not do that? Since when does she call pants “a…pant”? And since when is she not a housewife?
And they can get away with it because they don’t have a boss who will look down on it.
It fact, it doesn’t say “This is attractive,” as much as it says, “I don’t really have to work for a living.”
I had a friend who used to do this sort of thing, and it made him sound unbelieveably pretentious. The worst thing was, that he would give the foreign pronunciation to place names: “Next year, we plan to visit Paree, Roma, and Munschen; and possibly also Moskva.”
Most of us do that as a shorthand. If people ask me where I live and I say “Aoiz” there’s over 6 billion people on this planet who will have no idea what is it I’m talking about. Same for my coworkers’ San Sebastian (and that’s a biggish capital with an international movie festival), Irun or Arrasate. By saying “Pamplona, the bulls in the street place” or “Bilbao,” we save a lot of explanations. If anybody happens to be more familiar with local geography, they ask for further details.
I think it would be easier for me to list behaviors which I don’t think are pretentious. But I’ve got a couple of examples.
I was just the victim of some musical-instrument pretentiousness over the weekend, when a dinner guest noticed one of my guitars in a side room on his way back from the bathroom. It’s a Chinese-made Les Paul copy, and honestly a damn good one if I may say so. He asked if he could take a look at it, and upon closer inspection, and as soon as he noticed the name (or no-name) on the headstock, got a look on his face like he had just smelled shit. He enquired why I didn’t buy a Gibson (as if the difference between $200 and $2000 wasn’t self-evident), and handed it back to me as if it were covered in AIDS. No amount of justification, or physical evidence that this one was 90% as good for 10% the price, would have swayed his opinion. I just said “I guess I’m cheap” and let him think what he was going to think anyway.
Kitchenware can also make people very pretentious. Basically, if you didn’t get it at Williams-Sonoma, it’s shit. I’ve got some great knives in my kitchen, but God forbid one of the Cutlery Nazis sees them, or I’ll be ridiculed for them not being made by Henckels or Wüsthof or the like. Ditto my pots and pans. Why, oh why, didn’t I get the $300 copper saucier?!
People who think a brand label means anything, positive or negative. Brands are companies, and all companies exist for one reason: Profit. They all have their marketing departments, though, so if you think a brand means anything special it’s merely a triumph of marketing.
That doesn’t mean products are all the same. It does mean judging someone based on a brand means marketing has won.
All the while knowing you were above him and his “knowledge” of people who don’t buy expensive guitars?
Good looking girls, who know they look good, and act as if they are all that, and think they will get you to do anything for them. These girls are usually quite stupid, but not always.
People who get good grades and think they are smart as hell. These people actually believe that getting good grades means you are smart in real life as well. This applies to quite a few IV league students as well.
People whon diminish my personal views for not being religious, because, of course, we all know that **you **are right, but never consider what others might believe.
People who think they are better because they come from X country.
People who do not shake your hand or say high when you first meet them. Or they do shake your hand but look away. I hate that.
I don’t think you know what ‘pretentious’ means.
pdts
How is being financially irresponsible pretentious? 
Does it mean: “Marked by an unwarranted claim to importance or distinction”?
I think the things I mentioned do show these characteristics.
If you look at these responses in this thread you can see just how true this is. I would go as far as to say that the majority of the opinions expressed here are seriously pretentious!
Maybe 20 years ago, when nobody knew what a latte was and a serving of coffee wasn’t a liter. Today it’s pretentious to say you don’t go to Starbucks, but instead grind your own using beans special ordered from a guy you know in Sumatra.
You want pretentious snob?
I caught a snip of The Today Show and they had a guest on who was there to show some examples of good wines that won’t break the bank. They were all under $20. The guy was very nice and humble.
So what does that bitch Kathy Lee Gifford do? Every single one she tasted she made a face like she was drinking cat piss, shoke her head and would say “I don’t like it, I don’t like it.”
Sorry bitch, not everyone is like you and stocks their wine cellar with $100+ bottles of wine. Gah, I wanted to punch her right in the face.
They do. The money goes towards land and natural resource conservation. I’m under the impression that the people who buy them are divided between greens and hunters.
I’m confused. Are you implying that my reaction to his pretentiousness was, itself, pretentious? I certainly wasn’t thinking “I’m better than him” any more than any other poster in this thread who feels some slight satisfaction in not being a pretentious prick.
On the other hand, if that’s not how you meant it…then nevermind.
For a while, pronunciation of the word “Nicaragua” was a good indicator of a person’s political leanings. The further left, the thicker the accent.
Exactly.
I have a serious problem with people who think that because they don’t buy X, Y or Z brand they’re somehow better than those who do. As long as it’s expressed as a preference (“Oooh, I love Starbucks’ mochas!”) and not a value judgment (“People who don’t buy Starbucks mochas are rabble and probably drink gasp Sanka.”), who gives a crap? If it’s their money and they can afford to spend five bucks on a coffee and aren’t telling you that what you’re drinking is crap, does it matter? I’ve got certain brand loyalties, too (like Toyotas - I think they’re excellent cars).
Anyway, stepping off my soapbox and onto another, I think the following things are incredibly pretentious:
Making a big deal about what you do or do not do. “Oh, we don’t watch TV. We prefer to enrich our brains, not kill off cells.” “I won’t shop anywhere but Whole Foods.”
Competitive parenting. Who cares if your kid was potty trained earlier than his peers? By all means, be proud of him at home, but know that it’ll all come out in the wash later, if you praise him too much he’ll have a greater chance of being an entitled jerk later and you’ll alienate a lot of people (possibly your kid, too) by comparing him to other children.
As mentioned above, making value judgments about others based on their lifestyle. It’s one thing to think someone’s a jerk if they’re being a jerk, but quite another to make assumptions about someone based on what they eat or drink or where they live. *
Wow - 38 posts and no mention of Jazz?
I think so much fusion, free form, etc. jazz is absolute crap but there’s a whole continent of defenders who won’t admit that the emperor has no clothes. Perhaps just a variation on the art world.
A related subject - the “audiophile” who can’t admit that my consumer grade Sony receiver is indistinguishable to his God-owns-this-exact-model ultimate listening machine. He uses it to play his jazz fusion records which are pressed from vinyl rendered from the bones of virgins.
I was going to say “people who hate Hummers / sports cars / SUVs”. Ooooo! Look how politically correct I am! I hate big cars rich people drive!
Add to that people who dis Starbucks. Starbucks are so ubiquitous that it’s not a big deal to frequent one and Dunkin Donuts coffee always tastes watered down to me.
People who study some BS liberal arts major and then claim that college is about the “education process” and “isn’t a vocational program” or some such shit. People who can crap away $100,000 can go “find themselves” for 4 years. People with student loans need to spend that time making themselves competetive in the real world. Half those liberal arts majors are going to law school anyway.