Snobbery

Snobbery

I’m going to see the new Marvel movie on Monday, namely Captain America: Civil War. As is the case with these new releases, I like to refresh my mind with previous instalments. Now my wife would argue that my memory, when it comes to movies, needs no refresher course, but nonetheless.

So I’m watching through the Iron Man series before my last movie: Ant Man. But alas my transition between Iron Man 3 and Ant Man involves a drop from glorious 1080p to a meagre SD (Standard Definition.)

Now, I tried. I honestly did. But I just couldn’t do it. And my 100/20 fibre connection was sitting right there…

And so it is with a sad rattle of the keys that I must label myself a snob. It’s sad, but it seems that I have inadvertently entered a class of people hated by many for different reasons. But upon reflection, this is not the only area of my life to which this moniker applies, because it also seems that I have become a snob regarding live performances.

This particular snobbery came about due to a very unfortunate performance of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. You see, my wife had never seen the musical in question, but her mother had an old recording from when her high school had done a selection of songs. I thought it high time to educate her, having been brought up on such things. Thus we found ourselves going along to a local performance of the show. Now, know and understand, dear reader, that Joseph was written for high schools – it was designed to be simple, to be played by high school bands and sung by those with high school talents. So when we attended the local level production, generally considered to be, at least, a few steps above that of high school, and found that the music was simply played from a recording, that the actors were bad and that the singing was off key, I was, needless to say, rather disappointed.

After this I made a decision: I would not see a musical production unless it was at least at a national level, preferably an international one.

Now, if this were not bad enough, I am also fond of rather high-end foods. Not all the time, not even most of the time, but when I go out I like to buy off the higher end of the menu, again much to the chagrin of my wife.

Interestingly, I do not, as many men do, have this ‘problem’ when it comes to cars. Many of my friends will tell you that my car is filthy, both inside and out. So I am not an all-around snob, but nonetheless the snobbiness pervades. It pervades in interesting and varied ways, almost contradictory in some cases. This is especially true in the area of language. As previously mentioned, I have quite a memory when it comes to certain things: quotes from movies and words spoken, for example. Entire albums of songs and the music that goes along with them. But I do not have a memory for the spelling of words; I legitimately forget what my wife has told me not 5 minutes previous and am unable to do much more than put dates directly into my calendar lest I forget.

So all of this has caused me to think a bit. Is snobbery a bad thing in the grand scheme of things, or should we consider the benefits of it? Does it push us to be better people by only accepting the best from others, and do we then push ourselves further?

I never wish to have other people experience that awful performance of Joseph, so I do my utter best every time I operate a sound desk. I dislike the brutal shift between HD and SD so much that I always try and use the best equipment available to me so that others will not feel the pain that I do, even if they are unaware of it.

So, perhaps being a snob is not such a bad thing, so long as you take it and use that repulsion of the mediocre to push yourself and make yourself better than the thing you dislike.

Be a Snob, and be proud.