What's your snobbery?

In My Humble Opinion
61

I’m still on this phase. $120 or so for a sweater that I may never finish or make look right or I get too fat to wear it or makes me look like a big ass whale or I could nip down to the salvation army and buy 5 or 6 sweaters that someone else donated and I’m out $10-12.

Or I could just make a sweater out of Red Heart Yarn and be nuclear proof for about $12.

I almosted laughed-coughed up a lung on your response. I admire your cajones. A friend of ours is over in that area right now on a packaged Pilgrim type tour for two weeks. Though I am not into religion at all, it would be so kick ass to see everything and take pictures of the McDonald’s and Starbucks. Cause that’s what us yanks do.
I’m also a movie snob, though I have backed off from the Defcon 5 level of ASSHOLE Movie Purist I was before kids. I would find plot holes, rate acting, haggle finer points, question the score and other levels of PURE DOUCHEBAGGERY. Verily, I judged people on what their favorite movies were. ok, I still do. I’ve just stopped with the eye-rolling.

To show you how far I’ve come ( and how much meds work + maturity)

Before:

Some Halfwit: My favorite movie is Joe vs the Volcano. *

Me: Jesus Christ, that was the stupidest movie I’ve ever seen. Walked out on it. How many movies can Hanks and Ryan be in to screw the movie goers? [rant until foaming action starts or the room clears.]

Now:

Halfwit: Talledega Nights is my favorite movie.

Me: Yanno, I was very surprised how much I liked that movie. It hit on all the redneck-nascar stereotypes that we know and loathe, had more product placement than I’ve ever seen and kept me entertained throughout.
It also helps that we have a 43 year old confirmed bachelor not gayFriend who is the biggest movie asshole evur. Any guilty pleasure movie I had he would rip to shreds, leaving me with the defense of a petulant 13 year old girl,
" But, but, I just liked Pirates of the Caribbean, m’kay!!!" I didn’t want to be like him anymore.

Now, I understand that some movies are devoid of any plot, acting or purpose other than to a) make craploads of money b) make us laugh. I’m also just so happy to be able to watch a movie now that has gratutious swear words fuck fuck fuck in it and random acts of kick assery. Also, stupid-comedy movies are conversational starters and great for one liners. In essense, they are the Walmart of movies. Complete crap but you go to it anyway because there is nothing else to go to.

Shake and Bake.

*JVtV and the Left Behind series are my SIL’s favorites. Oh, great, my optical nerve just snapped.

62

I’m a spelling snob. Somehow (not sure why–might be partially because I’m a color-letter synesthete and words just “look” wrong to me if they’re misspelled) I was blessed with near-perfect spelling ability, at least for most “normal” words (I did fairly well in spelling bees but my ability isn’t based on memorizing root words and derivations and such). I don’t correct other people’s spelling (and grammar, and punctuation) but I’m kind of embarrassed to admit that I do get a little snobbish about people who can’t properly spell and punctuate a sentence. Particulary when they mess up on easy stuff like “your/you’re,” “alot,” and “their/there/they’re.”

I know in my mind that the ability to spell properly doesn’t necessarily correlate with someone’s intellectual capacity, and I have known people with abysmal spelling who are very smart, but…I can’t help it. I’m a spelling snob.

63

I can imagine you sitting there staring at your collection being strangely satisfied with its completeness and wishing to hell that there were more bootlegs out there that you never heard of so you could add them to the collection.

64

Yuo we’er saing?

65

Timepieces. I can’t afford anything nice, but I nearly roll my eyes when I see someone with a plastic case, plastic band, LCD strapped around their wrist. Cloth with Velcro straps aren’t much better. Battery powered pressed board grandfather clocks are even worse.

66

Actually, there are a lot more of them. But they’re so scarce, they’re near impossible to find. There are all kinds of them I don’t expect to ever see. But I have all of the recordings that were on them, on other bootlegs, in varying sound qualities. It’s a thrill to come across a really early bootleg, because there are generally fewer than a thousand of them in the world. For many, there are only several hundred, or even fewer. But by now, the market is all sewn up. Collectors own everything there is, and they don’t often give any of it up. Some bootlegs you’ll only ever read about, maybe see a picture, but never see one for real.

For that matter, if you find a bootleg of any group, that was made on some fictitious bootleg label, with CD covers or in an LP jacket and made in a factory, it’s a good find because there are so few of them. There aren’t many producing labels anymore. Technology did them in.

67

::Sam Kinison voice:: Oh! Oh! Oh!

I inherited a Seth Thomas clock from my mom.

I don’t know what the wood is but it’s gorgeous, maybe walnut or mahogany, maybe two kinds of wood. It’s a wind-up with a little drawer in front where you keep the brass key. You open a glass door trimmed in brass to move the hands.

When the face needed cleaning (mom smoked) I sent all the way to South Carolina to have it done, and to have the numerals touched up.

It stopped running so I took it to the jeweler/clock repairman. He removed the works, which included a wonderful chime, and installed a battery!!! It might as well be pressboard now.

68

I’m snobby about beer and knowledge.

69

Hard to describe how I’m snobby without sounding like a complete bitch, but here goes.
I am a snob about education. Yes, you CAN be a self made man who never went to college or you may be a successful, wise woman who dropped out of high school–I’ve met and liked both “types”. But I have this thing: my “people” should go to college. And not community college–4 year university. There is much more to uni than academics.

That said, college is not for everyone. I understand that. But my kids have no choice–they are all going to uni.
I am also a snob about some of the more formal etiquette out there. I will think less of you if you do not send me a thank you card for that baby shower/wedding/bridal shower gift. Yes, you DO need to send a breadandbutter note to me if you’ve stayed at my house overnight or for a period of time. I like to hear please and thank you. And make your bed when you stay here. Thank you.

I used to be a snob about people who didn’t read, but I find I am so outnumbered by them, I’ve started to cultivate tolerance strictly for survival’s sake. (the SDMB is one of the few places in my life where there are many more widely read people than myself–in fact, I’m about average for a Doper in reading).

Last one: I’m a snob about your children’s behavior. I expect quiet, inside voices. I expect to be called by my courtesy title (Mrs X). I expect no running around, knocking over displays, shouting, screaming, whining, temper tantrums. I make allowances for sick children or babies. But if your child is ill, why are you at the mall? If your baby is crying–address the needs of the infant. There is no excuse. I’ve had 3 kids; taken them in public; travelled with them with only one meltdown (due to pressure changes in the ear). What I see around me is plain old bad parenting or no parenting, period. But that’s another rant for another day.

70

That does not rock!

71

No, but good guess!

72

I confess to being a travel snob. (Not that I express it to anyone’s face, but I do feel it!)

2 wks in Cancun? Weekend in Vegas? Disneyland? Cruise Ship? Yeah, I’d rather go camping.

Give me the wilds or the third world any day of the week. I have experienced the same, “Why would you go there?”, and I don’t say it but I understand that you don’t ‘get it’. And if you say to me, “I won’t go anywhere unless there’s a five star hotel”, then I think you’re retarded.

Macdonald’s. Yeah, I’m sorry I can’t do that crap. I can eat junk food like anybody but I’d have to be starving to eat that non foodstuff.

I am kind of a reverse snob about things like expensive cars, clothes, addresses. It truly doesn’t impress me and, though I don’t say so, I think you a boor for being proud of such things.

And if you tell me how much your diamond, stereo, condo cost I know you are a crass idiot. I am biting my tongue to keep from suggesting you just go ahead and leave the price tags on your things. Snobbery though, no doubt.

73

I’m a professional wrestling snob. Odd, I know (well…after reading a few of the other posts, maybe not THAT odd), but it’s my thing. How can one be a snob about a predetermined form of entertainment? I think it’s quite similar to movie snobs. They have particular actors, directors, and such they defend to the death and I have wrestlers, bookers and promoters that I pledge my allegiance to.

If a fan tells me their favorite wrestlers is John Cena or Jeff Hardy, I look upon them with a mixture of pity and loathing. I shake my head in disbelief when I hear people saying they had never heard of AJ Styles, Christopher Daniels, Samoa Joe or Alex Shelley before appearing on TNA.

If a person asks me who my favorite professional wrestler is, I have to ask them if they mean “indy or mainstream?” My wrestling DVD collection is not sorted by alpabetical order or genre but rather country of origin and decade.

Yes, I realize that I may need professional help but I’m okay with that.

74

Dollfies/BJD?

75

I’m more snobbish about beer than the average American, though not nearly as much of a snob as some of my friends. I run with a pretty picky and knowledgeable (about beer) crowd, which includes a few homebrewers. Like nevermore, I don’t know all that much about the science and history of beer, but I know what I like: beer that kicks your ass and makes you like it. The best beer I’ve tried so far is called Brutal Bitter Ale, and it’s exactly what it sounds like. Similar to OneCentStamp, I thought I just didn’t like beer, until I turned 21 and got to pick the beer I drink, rather than settling for whatever shitty yellow lager is in the party fridge.

I know more about psychoactive chemicals in general, and recreational drugs in particular, than practically anyone else. Not only can I talk your ear off about the scientific, experiential, and sociological aspects of a lot of drugs, including some really obscure ones; but I’ve also experimented with a pretty wide assortment of them in my time and I’m not afraid to share my experiences when I feel they’re relevant. That makes some people uncomfortable. But for every four people who are a little put off by my stories about the handful of times I tried heroin, one person is really, truly fascinated, and they really get a lot out of my description. I live for that.

I’m a bit snobby about movies. Most of the movies I watch are at an arthouse theatre or in “AMC Select”, which I love–one of the local AMC theatres now puts out one or two niche-market films a week, and since I get AMC movie tickets for super-cheap I eat that up. Not to give myself a blowjob or anything, but I have an excellent record for picking the awesome movie that my friends wouldn’t think of going to otherwise because it’s not as hyped-up. So far my friends always end up loving the movie, even when they’re quite skeptical going into it. OTOH, I’ll fawn over a cheesy horror flick with everyone else.

In my socioeconomic class, my refusal to smoke Black & Milds, Swisher Sweets, Phillies and the like makes me a cigar snob. I can’t help it, I love a good Cuban. It’s not hard to get Cubans if you know where to go on the other side of the border, but I’m broke, so I end up smoking nothing at all.

I’m also a coffee snob, but that doesn’t really mean anything since I don’t drink the stuff anymore.

I’m something of an “anti-snob” about language use. As a diehard descriptivist, I can practically hear my own blood boiling when people talk about the “right” and “wrong” way to say something, or pick on a dialect (or language, for that matter) as “lazy” or “ugly”, or debate about whether or not something “is a word”. I try to leave the area as quickly as possible, because there’s really no other way I can keep from saying something. OTOH, while I’m the first to recognize a useful nonstandard system–like AAVE, whose conjugation is actually more logical than Standard American English–grammar usage that gets in the way of mutual intelligibility drives me nuts. Not least of which is the tendency for many Americans to heap extra prepositions onto a sentence like they’re throwing grenades into piles of leaves; the effect is similarly destructive. And I AM a spelling snob, though I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut about it.

For the sake of your blood pressure, don’t ever live in San Diego.

Woah! You can get Sierra Nevada in England?

I may have gone on the very same trip, and cojones aren’t really a factor. There’s nothing particularly dangerous on a day-to-day level about visiting the Middle East, as long as you avoid current warzones. For example, visiting Israel during the midst of the Hezbollah strikes last year might have been a questionable choice, but there’s nothing to be afraid of now. Nor was there when I went at the end of 2004/beginning of 2005.

fishbicycle, you might find this guest piece in the San Diego Reader from a few months ago fascinating.

Just out of curiosity, have you heard of Vampiro?

76

Yup. I was fan. Haven’t heard much of him since WSX was on MTV. Last I heard, I think he had stepped away from the business and is doing something…counseling related, maybe?

77

You couldn’t have nailed the problem with romance literature better. I too enjoy writing erotica, because I think sex is a fun way to explore character development, and it’s surprising what I learn about my characters when they screw. I’ve never written anything that lacked romance as a general theme, but my style is definitely not formulaic. I usually write from the male perspective, and I hate the whole mythology surrounding what love is supposed to be. I try to break that down constantly with my writing, just rip those stereotypes apart to try to get at the truth that I know.

Valuable romantic relationships, IMHO, are driven by human compassion and a sense of personal responsibility for the wellbeing of others that extends beyond the two people who happen to be in love. The few people who read my writing are quite surprised to find how off-the-wall it can be–generally pretty violent, lusty, and gritty, not at all like the personality I project to my friends and family. But underneath the veneer of stressful bullshit I write about (and that I truly think reflects real life more than, say, being scooped up on a horse and carried away) I think I always manage to find a sort of moral or philosophical core at the heart of every relationship–and I dare say that is even motivated by all the stressful bullshit to grow and flourish.

I really get pissed off by the romance-novel writing industry for this reason, so I applaud you in joining the revolution. I’m tired of ‘‘genre writing’’ in general. Screw formulas–to me, novels are about people, not plots.

78

Beer. Definitely beer.

79

As I was reading this story today, I realized something else–I have a real snobbery about the internet, specifically about people who don’t use it. People who don’t use the internet these days are just not interested in being informed people, and I admit I look down on that. I have a sliding scale of forgiveness as people get older, but anyone under 40? Forget it.

80

You know, I think there’s a law of the universe that states that anytime anyone ever posts anything critical of another person’s spelling, or touting one’s own spelling prowess, at least one typo *has *to creep into that post no matter how carefully the poster reads over their work before they post it.

You found mine. :slight_smile:

Oh, and: Particularly. I can spell it. Really.