So what kind of snob are you?

[Scourge108]

I'm a snob about everything.  I know more than most people about pretty much every subject that matters.  If I don't know more about it, that's because it isn't worth knowing about, and I feel smugly superior for recognizing that fact and maintaining my ignorance of the subject (you know, the old "Oh, well, that's interesting but I have a life!")

However, unlike the majority of superior assholes, I have the good sense to be polite and NOT say what I am really thinking, so most people mistake me for a good enough guy.  After all, if you really are superior, you don't really have anything to prove, do you?

[Gordon C. Landis]

I can't believe no one else has copped to this:

I'm a GNS snob.  Totally.  I mean, I try to be nice about it, and admit to the slim possibility that I'm missing something, but - really, I'm a GNS snob.

Not that it does me the least bit of good . . .

Gordon

[Lance D. Allen]

Self-awareness?

Don't know a better way to put it. Basically, people who base their opinions on ignorance, refuse to admit they're ignorant on a given topic, and claim that theirs is the only right way can drive me to a frothing frenzy just by thinking about them. If I am shown to be less than knowledgeable about a given stance, I'll generally back off and research. If I really don't give a flying fuck, I'll say so. I'll admit my ignorance, admit that my opinion is based on ignorance, and that I'm not going to change it. I have to know why I feel the way I do about things, unless they're the things that I've confessed, if only to myself, that I'm ignorant about, and choose to remain so.

Overall, I think an opinion based on ignorance is one of the worst things imaginable. However, it greatly mitigates it if you admit to being ignorant, and simply don't care. Pig-headed honesty is better than lying to me, yourself, and everyone else.

Examples of "pig-headed honesty" I hate Rifts and Hondas. My reasons for both are petty and ignorant, but I accept that, and hate them anyhow.

However, unlike the majority of superior assholes, I have the good sense to be polite and NOT say what I am really thinking, so most people mistake me for a good enough guy. After all, if you really are superior, you don't really have anything to prove, do you?

My philosophy exactly, and the reason that even many of my close friends wouldn't claim that I'm an arrogant sonofabitch.

[Sirogit?]

The Simpsons
Punk/Metal
Video Games
Transforming Robots
Homelessness
Nudity/Stripping(Don't ask me)

Most of those are *sorta* specialized by time period(Early punk/The simpons before season 7/Video games before 3d/Transforming robots during the 80's) But I'm still pretty much a snob about them.

[Spartan]

I'm a snob of all sorts. ;)  In particular...

Music.  I've got a degree in music, and I don't believe taste in music is _only_ opinion.  There truly is sucky, poorly constructed music out there.  I believe preference for a  _style_ of music is largely taste, since good musicians and composers can be found in all genres.  I _try_ to use the criteria that if a musician is performing at his or her peak, and is capable of performing virtually anything one could be required to as a professional, _then_ it comes down to taste.  I can't say who's better... Micheal Brecker or Joe Lovano (both influential jazz saxophonists), but I _can_ say they are both better musicians than ME.  By an order of magnitude at least.  Probably several!  No taste involved... that's just a fact.  However as far as professional musicians go, the best players tend to be found in the jazz and classical fields, though there are amazing musicians in metal, country, salsa... you name it. :)  That being said, just because a certain peice of music is good doesn't mean anyone has to like it! :P  That was long, sorry. :D

Beer and Ale.  I like decent microbrews, imports, and anything different from mass-produced beer.

Tea.  By all the gods I think Tetley's Tea is crap.

Single Malt Scotch.  Happiness is a bottle of Carhdu or Lagavulin.

I'm not an rpg snob in any sense of the term.  I'll play anything.  I have my preferences, but I'm willing to say what I think is superior, just cause I'm an ass and like to talk about it almost as much as music! :)

Happy Birthday, Forge! :)

-Mark

[Bob McNamee]

I'm a homebrewer and a bit of a beer snob...

...its a crime that the beers rapidly becoming popular in England are American beers like Miller etc (which have their places).

The funny part is that they are made over in England virtually the same as ordinary bitter, just extra filtering and carbonation... and lots more expensive.

Sad...I'd love to live there with good solid beers at a pub on the corner...hope they are still available at corner pubs if I ever hit the lottery.

:)

[Ben Lehman]

Cheese.  Particularly Italian cheeses.  I literally cannot stomach some American "Parmesean" cheeses.  They make me throw up.  Seriously.

Pasta.  "Al Dente" is a perfect state obtained only by me, and infrequently at that.

Books.  I don't rub other people's faces in it, so that might not count as snobby, but I'm *very* particular about the books I read.

Creative Process / particularly writing.  Ron can attest to some bitter PMs complaining about how everyone keeps calling Narrativist play "like writing a story" and how flamingly inaccurate that is with regards to the creative process.  I'm one of these writers who needs his feng shui perfect.

Grammar.

yrs--
--Ben

[talysman]

I am snobbish about my thread. You must use my definition of snobbishness, I say.

you snob-snob.

I am a fast-food-eating, trash film watching lowlife. I'm pretty tolerant of a lot of faults in my entertainment that other people would freak out over. but I'm pretty critical of movie/tv/book plots (I'll enjoy it, but I will still nitpick.) and as far as film in general goes, I think the golden age ended in the '60s. there are a few films after that I think are really great, but I honestly think most of the stuff churned out in hollywood today isn't as good as even a B-movie in the '50s.

[Trevis Martin]

Hmm...

Visual Art, especially contemporary.  As someone said earlier, I have the Masters so that gives me the license for it, right?  I know that some of the art out there is really crap, and it has nothing to do with 'taste' either but I find the "I don't know about art but I know what I like" idea to be far to prevelent.  Art is an enormously interesting mirror of the culture that produced it and one's laziness in engaging it seriously is a poor excuse for dismissing it.

anti-'Talent' snob.  Talent in the arts is nice, but its like having a talent for swimming.  Just because you don't have a talent for it doesn't mean  you can't become a great swimmer. Most of the artists, visual or otherwise, who really get anywhere work their asses off.  

RPG's and, of course, GNS.

--Trevis

[hanschristianandersen]

Programming languages - give me Objective-C or give me death!  If you don't appreciate weak types and dynamic binding, you're clearly an inferior human being.

Sushi - Once you've had really good seared ahi... repeatedly... it's hard to go back cheap tuna rolls.  And there's something so wonderfully hedonistic about blowing $14 for two little pieces of o-toro nigiri.

(snob-in-training) Port - I'm just barely starting down the road towards being a Port snob.  I thought about becoming a Scotch snob, but even the smallest amount of Scotch gives me a hangover in 30 minutes flat.

[Sean]

This is a great thread.

I have a sort of investigative snobbiness. That is, every time I get interested in something new, I figure out what the snobs in that area like. This enables me to get into conversations with said snobs, from which I often learn things. Also, it insulates me from being mocked as an idiot, and consequently from that painful experience where you have to either pick a fight with someone or withdraw into your shell.

Other than that, I'm a little bit of an art and fiction snob. I used to be a snob about philosophy until I realized how hard it was to make any progress in the field at all. I think some people would consider me a food/wine/coffee snob but I'm not; I just can tell the good stuff from the bad.

[clehrich]

Good golly, where do I begin?  Actually, I'm not a snob; I am actually greatly superior, that's all.  :)

Various forms of academic theory
RPG's (though not here)
Music (classical, esp. early 20th century)
Television (which I can't stand)
Food (fancy)
Fantasy literature
Art in RPG's (I usually hate it)
Spelling and typos
Native-plant gardening
Cars (I hate SUVs, most American cars, overpriced pseudo-sports cars, automatic transmission, etc. -- go get yourself a late-90s Honda Prelude with manual transmission)
Anime (very little of which I think is any good)
Occultism (about which I know far too much)

I'm sure I'll think of more soon...

[Jack Aidley]

...its a crime that the beers rapidly becoming popular in England are American beers like Miller etc (which have their places).

What amuses me is that the "American" beers brewed for the British market are nothing like the same named beers brewed for the American market.

[orbsmatt]

I guess mine would be swing dancing...

*looks around at all strange gazes*

What?

[Rich Stokes]

I'm a snob about
- modern Fantasy fiction. I refuse to read most of the stuff out there, as it's crap. Anyone with a brain knows that the only good fantasy authors are Charles DeLint, Clive Barker, and China Mieville.

I'll drink to that.  I've found myself trying to explain China's work and having a really hard time getting it across.  I realised that it was because I was subconciously refusing to use the word "fantasy" to describe a book which was actually GOOD.

And while we're on the subject of drinking: Beer.  I'm a massive beer snob.  I like to drink, and I drink a lot.  I've actually frightened a lot of Americans with how much I drink on a regular basis, not that I'm proud of that.  I don't drink wine, I've never aquired a taste for it.  Mostly Belgian beer, and I don't mean Stella.  Chimay, Duvel, Caricole, Leffe, there are some really great beers out there and I really don't understand why anyone would bother to drink American Budweiser or Fosters.  Any Lambic beer rocks my world.  Spirit's are fine, but not Gin.  Beer's what really does it for me though.

RPGs, yeah, I'm a very vocal anti D&D snob.  The conciet that "d20 =\= D&D" makes me laugh.  The appologists who rant about how 3e is completely different from old D&D or AD&D because it has "better multiclassing" really amuse me: If your system wast so fucking retarded it wouldn't NEED multiclassing.  3.5 added even more patches to an awful system.  Add new rules to "fix" the broken stuff!  You cannot polish a turd.  For the record I don't really differentiate Paladium from D&D/d20.

Videogames are, or at least were, a really big snobbery for me.  I live in a country where videogames that do not start with the words "Tombraider" or "Fifa" don't sell and often don't get marketed.  For the record I generally prefer Japanese or European games, but the odd American effort can rock too.  Halo was pretty good, if a bit repetitive.  Deus EX was cool too.

Web standards, coding and Flash abuse all piss me right off.  It's almost like people just don't care if anyone can read their sites these days.

Christ, I could go on all day.  I'd best shut up now.