#snobbery

[bessiemae]

I'm going to say something that's not the least bit earth shattering or new information. People are really mean online. But, I'm talking specifically about people being mean snobs. I saw someone post a video purely to mock someone else for not understanding something. Now, I know there are people who are arrogantly ignorant and maybe they should be mocked. Or, maybe even then, we should be more compassionate. But, this person wasn't that. They were simply amazed by something. And instead of just posting a comment explaining, they had to laugh. Others had to respond saying 'I didn't know this either -when I was six". People could take the time to expand someone's knowledge. Instead, they laugh.

Then, another person made the mistake of listing some classic books they didn't like with a brief -one or two sentence- reasoning for why they didn't like them. Oh, the attacks. You have a low reading level. You don't know how to read classics. Why not watch a rom com (the implication that you only have the mental capacity to watch romantic comedies). Or the critiques are too shallow. Obviously, if someone is making a list and giving brief reason for each one, what they write will be shallow. But, instead of asking for elaboration, they assume that the excerpt must be the extent of their views.

I also have to wonder if some people really enjoy classic literature. I mean, I am doing what I complain about. But, it seems like some people feel if you read a book deemed a classic you have to be ready to publish a peer reviewed dissertation every time. And, if that's how you enjoy books, more power to you. But, they act like this is the only way to read a classic. Cozying up in the bed, getting lost in the story, reacting to the characters like they've come alive. Loving a character. Hating one. Maybe being able to understand why a character is terrible, but still having an emotional reaction to them - I get they had a bad childhood, but they're a fictional character, so I'm fine with wanting to slap them upside the head every time I see them on the page. But, not feeling like you have to read like an academic just because it's a classic. These books didn't start off in the classroom.

[glitterpyre]

There is no moral high ground in denying yourself pleasure on the gamble that it will bring you more pleasure after death.

[glowing-disciple]

I’ve been thinking about this specific XKCD a lot lately.

It seems like folks on here are diving headfirst into some weird blend of one-up-manship and the No True Scotsman fallacy whenever there’s an opportunity lately, no matter the topic.

Or to put it another way, it’s like people are desperate for ways to put others down while propping up their own imagined worth, and it keeps coming out as something that boils down to “As a real _____, I’m better than you.”

It’s particularly irksome when this is about something that’s supposedly meant to bring people together, like certain religions or movements.

Statements like “As a real Christian, I’m better than you” definitely don’t come off right - especially when you consider how little we really know about the state of someone’s soul or how humility is considered to be an important virtue.

But here we are.

[muzantropic]

That's about how much money I would have if they paid for snobbery

About that much / Примерно столько Daniil Kudryashov, 2026

[makiruz]

You know I have issues with authors; or rather the author sphere

Anyway, I'm hearing there's discussions on people who wrote and published mediocre books; saying these people aren't authors; and this is why I hate the "author culture" or whatever you wanna call it

Milo Winter IS an author, Haley Pham is also an author; "Author" isn't a badge given to people who make masterpieces, it's the title of a person who writes and publishes a book, regardless of quality

This is pure snobbery, and I hate it

[xylophonetangerine]

It feels gauche to go to a famous restaurant and order the dish they're the most famous for. I have had sautéed reindeer at the Hotel Pohjanhovi restaurant in Rovaniemi and it was really good but it's not that well-known of a place. I once spoke with a Finnair flight attendant and she hadn't even heard of it! I would feel a little hickish going to the Savoy in Helsinki and ordering the Vorschmack, for example.

[mumblingsage]

When you pull back from the idea of literature, or movies, or TV, or music as labor, and see it rather as joy, then there's far less anxiety about pleasure, whether your own or others'. (Some joys are naturally painful, like playing sports; imagining pain and joy in opposition to each other is a telltale sign not only of Protestantism but also of dorks.) ... The wounds of high art are largely self-inflicted, and on purpose. If you really wanted people to engage with risky and challenging novels, movies, or television, you'd tell them how great it all is, how much you loved it, and what it meant to you. Unless, of course, you wanted your likes to stay a special art for special people - if you wanted to keep it all for yourself. In that case, you might lament the death of art, only so you can preside over its corpse.

-Lyta Gold, Dangerous Fictions

[mumblingsage]

The status anxiety - or fear of loss of prestige - that leads snobs to gatekeep their territory is often mirrored, on the other side, by anti-snobs with their own inverted form of status anxiety. Jonathan Franzen once shared a letter from an anti-fan, a woman who had read The Corrections and imagined, in a sort of furious fanfic, that Franzen's ideal readers must be "the elite of New York...who are beautiful...sophisticated, don't smoke, have abortions tri-yearly, live in penthouses, this superior species of humanity who read Harper's and The New Yorker." Here the enemy is high-class but also a woman: a woman who thinks she's better than you, which is intolerable. For a sufficiently insecure person, a weird and difficult novel isn't just a piece of art they couldn't personally get into but a direct insult to their sense of self and belonging. Somewhere, other people know that this insecure person tried and failed, and they are laughing.

-Lyta Gold, Dangerous Fictions