I am definitely a snob about clutter and mess. My sister in law can’t have people in her home because it’s so messy. She’s not a hoarder but just leaves everything everywhere. Clothes on the floor, toys scattered all over. Newspapers not picked up for weeks when finally shell toss them and think that’s a huge accomplishment. It’s to my snobby judgmental mind straight out laziness.
The FlyLady (remember her?) calls that living in C.H.A.O.S. (Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome).
I have one friend who always wanted a small formal living room in her homes (even though it was rarely used) as she was raising her family. Her reasoning? It was a room she could keep tidy with three children, so she always had a clutter-free room if the preacher dropped by unexpectedly. 
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I’m probably the opposite of many of you and it could be due to being raised by a Hoarder. I can’t stand places that are too clean, meaning they look like they could be in a magazine. It makes me afraid to touch anything or sit anywhere. I won’t visit these folks if I can help it. MIL comes to mind - leaving a pacifier on the table for even a few minutes was a grave sin. I felt sorry for H because if he and his brother wanted to continue playing with anything overnight - too bad. Everything had to be picked up even a game they hadn’t finished, towers that had been built, or the model train that had been set up. Newspapers or magazines could be tossed before they got to be read. At one point all of H’s mementos from his birth were tossed because they were in a box in a closet and MIL didn’t want the box there and never checked to see what was in it. All old photo albums and yearbooks? Gone. To this day H is sad. One medium sized box.
But, true hoarder places creep me out too. I went back to my dad’s place after starting college and instantly started cleaning his bathroom (my sister was livid - dad was appreciative). Once out of the house I couldn’t stand going back there to stay at all. Ditto with various apartments my sister rented over the decades. If you need a path to negotiate a house and have to clean clothes or junk out of chairs to sit with literal garbage and dirty dishes strewn around it’s just repulsive and gives me that same “I don’t want to touch it” feeling.
I need a middle range - a lived in look.
I don’t want to feel like I’m in a museum either but I’d rather that than being in a house with a hoarder. My H’s one aunt’s house gives me nightmares just thinking about it. There are piles and piles and piles of boxes, old magazines, nicknacks, etc… And oh so dirty. I absolutely hated taking my D there when she was a baby because I didn’t want to put her down anywhere because it was so filthy.
I probably trend more to the museum side of the spectrum but our homes are definitely lived in. I just want things to be in their place and I don’t like clutter.
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H and I both come from homes that were VERY cluttered and full. I’d say borderline hoarder or just super messy. My mom did not clean either. I did most of it and I was a kid, so not very much or well.
Anyhow, we think our house is very empty and clean, but in reality it’s nothing like a museum. I’m in the den and looking at my pillows strewn about, all my yoga/stretching/massage gun on the floor, a Diet Coke can, chapstick, a mask and a cat hair brush on the table. My definition of neat and clean is if you give me 20 min notice that you’re coming over, I can have the place picked up (but not wiped) and not just everything shoved in a drawer or closet (my mom’s solution if we had guests)
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True on the imports but unlike today you couldn’t walk into a 7-11 and buy Guinness.
I appreciate many things. Great writing, singing, architecture, beauty in nature. But I don’t think I’m snobby about them.
I think I am snobby and quality of thinking and food. I received a terrific education at three of the best universities in the world and began my career as a professor at an elite school. I love uncovering flaws in logic or assumptions or finding alternative explanations for findings. I heard that I was a little feared as a discussant on panels at conference and things like that. Sloppy thinking really bothers me. I left full-time academia many years ago, but still have that habit of mind and frustration with folks who don’t seem to think well.
I have had the opportunity to travel all over the world on business and pleasure and to eat at restaurants in many places, including some of the best restaurants in various countries. I really appreciate great execution and find myself judgmental about restaurants like one in my little town. My friends love it but I think it is just expensive comfort food – well prepared but with no imagination).
This thread has devolved into posts describing/defending what posters are particular about, which is not snobbishness. You are a snob ONLY if you look down on or judge others for choices you deem substandard to yours.
So, who do you look down on and why?
Does anyone want to ‘fess up to any true snobbishness?
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I do look down on people whose homes are too messy to have anyone outside the immediate family in them.
I’ll have to admit looking down on both extremes (MIL and the Hoarders), but not them as people - just their choices. I’m not sure if that counts.
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It’s a really interesting topic and difficult to define, IMO. One can have strong feelings about something and not even realize they sound snobby to others. Lord knows we see it in CC concerning colleges, places where some say “I would NEVER send my child there!” Why, thanks! That’s where my child is going.
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Another thought. I worked with a terrible snob. She was just awful and would truly put her nose in the air. Her favorite put down was another state, where her in laws lived, as being so “country, redneck, stupid, backward, ugly” nearly every single day. One our coworkers was from there and loved her home state, even retired back home eventually and it really hurt her feelings. There was no need for that ever. She was really maybe more a b-word than a snob.
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I think that is the problem, where is the line from snobbery and just being mean. I don’t think anyone thinks that they are a snob, they think that they like their life (or insert anything) better.
I have a sibling who dislikes where I live. She takes very opportunity to disparage it. She thinks I dislike where I live also, because it’s very different from where she lives.
People don’t like to see the unpleasantness in themselves. They think they are right and you are wrong instead.
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I admit to being snobbish about people who believe anything without questioning, no matter how unreasonable it is. Whatever the latest outrage they’re told to believe, they think it’s true, and they refuse to investigate. Zero intellectual curiosity, just misplaced trust.
I also am snobbish about people who brag too much, likely it’s a Seattle thing. Someone could be a billionaire, have a kid who is the next Einstein, and they’re low key about it. It’s not false modesty, but people are pretty real around here. Yeah, I’m a typical Seattle snob about these things, I guess.
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I’m a lot like that too @busdriver11. I appreciate intellectual curiosity (which does not always correlate to education).
In addition I am also averse to bragging. In my case it might come from growing up in a small town in the midwest- everyone knew if you had/didn’t have money, a top education, etc. so no point in bragging. Believe it or not there were several people who lived there with plenty they could have bragged about, but they were very low key.
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Not just snobbish when putting down regional differences–it’s a form of racism. It’s condoned these days and not acceptable.
How is it “racism”? Is there racial animus involved? Regional contempt, perhaps, but on its face the comment is not disparaging of anyone’s race.
It’s always been condoned. “The Beverly Hillbillies,” anyone? Or the old “Ma and Pa Kettle” movies?
I agree that regional putdowns are snobby. Saying ‘flyover country’ for example. Snobby. Or disparaging people from rural areas also snobby.
I recognize that I am a history snob. I cannot stand it when a movie or TV show is really historically inaccurate in its portrayals of the people or the times in casting for example. Or in leaving out major events or in ‘prettying up’ the past.
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