I’m also a snob about the travel thing. For the life of me, I can’t fathom how someone can stand in a line for 20 minutes and not figure out the deal. Everyone else in the line needs to take off their shoes and jaket, hold on to their boarding pass and walk through the metal detector, but then when they get to the front of the line, they are just completely flustered by the process.
I’m also a snob about beer.
I’m also very picky about music, but in the opposite way. I studied music theory, music literature and learned to play several instruments in college (music major), but my favorite music has come from the 21st century. Generally not the music you’d hear on the radio though.
Beer (I even cite living in Belgium for a year as if it’s a beer Masters degree or something. “Oh, my, yes, my local beer shop was the Hopduvel in Ghent!”) and also reading fiction.
It takes something very well written to tickle me, and usually something that’s a joke on writing itself: I’m perfectly well entertained by a decently written thing with modest ambitions, like Pterry or Harry Potter or Jasper Fforde or those Roman Empire-based mysteries and stuff like Le Carre. Straightforward but decent stuff like Robertson Davies. But I hate dodgy fiction in good, thinkin’-man’s fiction’s clothing. What tickles the hell out of me and gets me thinking hard? Calvino, Eco, Borges, Joyce. Also really exquisitely anal-retentively crafted stuff like Ondaatje and ridiculously written but clever things like Pynchon, as well as a lot of less ‘meta’ fiction. I like it when authors sort of. . stage interventions on authorship, mess with boundaries and conventions. I like that. But when someone tells me that because I like Eco, I should like Dan Brown? Enraging. When someone says that people who purport to like Eco/Borges/Joyce are just snobs faking it? I assume that person isn’t terribly bright. I have a hard time accepting most people’s book recommendations-- some more than others (I have friends I know to listen to, and others I know never to listen to).
God, my back and neck muscles hurt now. What an uncomfortable position.
I’m not picky about writing, per se, but picky about vocabulary and word choice. If I’m reading a novel and the author uses a word like, “mundaneness”, (and I just read this the other day) it’s like nails against my internal chalkboard. Any good editor would replace it with “mundanity” faster than a fat kid can rip open a candybar (and that’s FAST). I don’t understand what the purpose of writing be, if not the nuts and bolts. I also dislike trite similes.
Good example: I recently got into an argument with my boss, who asked me to proof the eulogy he was writing for his mother. He began a sentence with something like, “Though she was…” and I said, “It needs to be, ‘ALthough she was…’”. He insisted you can begin a sentence with “though”. I am, 100% sure to this day, that “although” sounds better on the front end of a sentence. That’s my snobbery.
If you tell me the Left Behind novels are the best books you’ve ever read, we can’t be friends.
Other than that, I’m easy.
Internet, Computers, Music - Bands, Porn, Sex and Female Anatomy and Psychology.
I’m a cooking snob. I will eat all kinds of pre-packaged crap (although, really, nothing below trader joe’s standard, I guess, and I don’t really do take out fast food of the chain variety, only local pizza) but if you want me to cook, I will pick good ingredients. Not necessarily the most expensive, but they will be the best I can gather. Sometimes this will mean spending a lot of money for one little thing, sometimes the best is whatever is cheap but fresh and spectacular and we’ll improvise. But damned if I will cut corners when I’m shopping to cook. I once had a ten minute argument in a supermarket with my roommate because she agreed that I could cook risotto but was trying to argue me into using the generic long grain we got for everything else rather than buying the “deformed looking” arborio. She was a much more stubborn person than I in general, but I won that one.
Music - especially local musicians. I often sit quietly while someone strums through a well-known acoustic song, only to play it repeatedly for the enjoyment of the two people in the room who liked it in the first place. I want to hear creative musicians. I’m a bit picky, to be honest.
Literature - I can’t stand it when people talk about literature sometimes. Mostly, they discuss things that I see as completely irrelevant (did this character wear a red shirt?) and skip over the larger ideas (this character was a foil for this, represented this, or something like that). I feel bad about this sometimes.
Internet/computer - it is easy for me to use the internet. It is easy for me to fix family member’s computers. I cringe every time one of them asks me why they haven’t received a check for a forward they sent along.
Brendon Small
I am a whore for Clinique Superfit foundation. 20 years ago I never even imagined I’d be paying $20 for a single bottle of foundation, but Superfit is the only thing I have found that smooths out the uneveness in my skin tone and stays on for a reasonable amount of time (drug store foundation I can sweat off before I leave the house in the morning) without breaking my skin out.
I have heard a lot about Bare Minerals or whatever, but it is awful pricey - I want to try it before I spend that much money on something.
I am a makeup snob. I figure it’s stuff I slather on my face every day and keep it there for 10+ hours, so I might as well be picky about it.
Yarn.
The colors. Texture. Fibers.
Sadly, all the yarn snobs exist in the imaginary world called the Intarweb. Everyone else I know knits* with the cheap ass nuclear proof Red Heart yarn. we all gots to at some point in our knitting life. but you don’t have to stay with RED HEART forever.
And, to show you what I hypocrite I am, I usually knit with the middle class yarn Lion Brand. Cause it is within my beer budget of champagne tastes.
*I actually don’t know anyone who knits.
Romance novels. My mother-in-law once left a box of well-read romance novels on my doorstep because she knows I like to read. I may have the most relaxed views of human sexuality in my geographical region, but I was shocked at the content of those things. When I visit the dentist office and see a woman of a certain age (I am also of a certain age) thumbing through one of those wank fests, I am embarrassed. And avid readers of romance are very enthusiastic, and carry them everywhere: to work, to the park, to school. Nearly all of the cover art makes liberal use of the color red, so romance novels are unmistakable. Ladies, those are for the nightstand. Gettin’ all sexed up in the dentist office is just creepy.
I am a snob about tolerance of the natural world. I understand allergies to bee stings and such, but when a man or woman runs screaming from the room because a gnat lands on their plate beside a bleeding piece of steak, I am exasperated. We are only 75 years removed from dirt floors and a milk cow in the back yard. Surely climate control isn’t solely responsible for removing the ability to manage our environment without expressing sheer terror at insects and dirt. If your tiny, frail little grandmother could walk out in the backyard and snap a chicken’s neck for Sunday dinner, then you can handle a bat swooping by your head at dusk without squeeling and running for cover.
Books, chocolate and cheese. This is not to say that I think I know more about any of the three, just that I am uber picky.
I won’t eat chocolate (as a general rule) of less than 80% cocao – and when it says “dark chocolate” I expect to see less than 5 grams of sugar per serving. I just don’t like sweet chocolate, ICK!
With cheese, I will really go off the hook and pay the extra for the older stuff. I am not a fan of “snob cheeses” (such as brie, camembert, etc) but I prefer Gruyere over Emmental, and I will not buy “baby swiss.” My cheese thing goes much further than this, but honestly, it makes me sound like a pretentious twit, when really it is just a matter of preference.
Books? There are certain authors I simply refuse to read – because in my eyes they write like a child. What’s so funny about my literary snobbiness is that there are some authors that I love who write for children, but write so well that I read their stuff (Eoin Colfer for example). At any rate, this is one of the things that gets me ousted around my husband’s friends who think that reading JK Rowling (GAG!) makes them “well-read.” I just shut up and stop talking and then they push so that I finally say something along the lines of “oh, I don’t talk about literature, because I am a snob. Sorry, I really don’t want to offend your taste, may we change subjects?” Yeh, they all hate me. Whatever.
Books, outdoor gear [north face, HH], stonewalls, treehouses. 
Music.
Which also makes me an asshole.
I’ve broken up with women because of the music in their collection.
Recently I’ve tried to be better about it, I’ve tried to not be as judgemental, but Jeez, is it my fault all your heros suck?
I used to be a book snob, snickering when I saw a Dannielle Steele or a Dan Brown book, but now I figure if people are reading, no matter what, it’s a good thing.
I’m picky about three things: food (especially the food my son eats), etiquette and romance novels.
Food - I don’t like the processed stuff and what I and my family eat is typically packed with veggies to get maximum nutritional punch. Also, I rarely order food for my kid off the kids’ menu at restaurants, which perplexes a particular couple we go out with who can’t fathom why I wouldn’t want my son eating chicken nuggets and fries.
Etiquette - I couldn’t give a crap how most people eat (such as what fork they use and how unless improper use causes me to get an elbow to the ribs), what side of the sidewalk a man walks on vs. the woman or opening doors. But basic courtesy and etiquette is very important to me, and it bothers me when others don’t bother to use it. I don’t mean, “Fall all over me to make me happy,” I mean, “Co-workers should at least ask if I’m busy before yakking at me while I’m on a call at work.”
Romance novels - Okay, erotica really. I write for a living. I also critique others’ writing. It bothers me in erotica and romance when flowery terms are used for people’s genitalia. If you’re going to write about sex, write about it. Terms like “orchid,” “flower,” etc. make me cringe. So does the standard romance formula, which is one of the reasons I tend to prefer to read and write erotica. In general, you don’t have to have this formula: woman and/or man pine for each other. Woman and man get together, perhaps with the man kidnapping the woman. There’s a conflict where the couple misunderstands each other, so man usually leaves woman. Woman gets in dire circumstances (including, but not limited to, near rape, illness, poverty, etc.). Man realizes the error of his ways, tries to win back woman who initially resists, but eventually capitulates. Man and woman marry. The people - the women in particular - tend to be more realistic in erotica with regular needs/wants instead of crying and pining away for some schmuck. There’s also not as set a formula - you can do more with it as long as some sex scenes are included.
Reminds me of the guy in High Fidelity, when he goes over to a new girlfriend’s house and is perusing her record collection. He’s not sure he can keep seeing her when he realizes that she owns not only Tubular Bells, but Tubular Bells II!!
Now **that ** would be something to be proud of! Many have tried…
I was going to say I am a snob about hand-quilting since not many people do it, but I got taken down a peg on that by people who can hand-quilt in both directions. And I’m an anti-snob about quilting technique – no need to wash or iron the fabric, borders are optional, etc.
I’m definitely a beer snob. I’m not above a Bud on a hot day if there isn’t anything else around, but when I see someone in a brewpub or a place with a nice selection order a Bud Light (or worse, any variation of Corona), that person is simply beneath me. Oddly, I don’t feel this way at all about wine, even though I know quite a bit about it, too.
Restaurants. People who choose bland, mass-produced claptrap when similarly-priced interesting fare is easy to find just piss me off.
I have to say I am a travel snob.
If you think Disney or a Cruise is the perfect vacation, I glaze over. It is prepackaged, sterile and safe. Wait, that is a vacation from mundania that is most peoples lives. not that I live the Rockstar life!!111!!!
The one thing I’ll give people who do Vegas is they understand that Vegas is a fantasy place without any perceived notions. You go there to see some shows, gamble, gawk at the crowds and the garishness of it all, eat $5 lobster ha! and cheap drinks. It is not a cultural experience. It just is Vegas. Gawdy. Over the top.
Disney is the mecca for commerically driven world. I am an infidel.
I prefer to travel to neato places with interesting sites, historical, artistic or oddball.
When we can afford it.
Which the last vacation we took was a new transmission for my husbands car. And the trip we took before that was a new engine for my truck.
Handmade paper.
I took an amazing semester long course in handmade paper, and we made it from virgin fibers in the traditional Japanese manner, and also did some European paper, too. Every time I hear about someone “making paper” out of old junk mail in a blender, I just want to scream. Or if they put dried flowers in it, that’s just as bad.