What characteristics define snobbery?

I see it almost like a weird kind of status-racism if you will excuse the term. For example thinking someone is not as good as you because they don’t have a brand name hand bag or sun glasses, or thinking less of you because you do not like the same kind of music, be it opera or heavy metal you listen to.

I guess I would define it as:

The attempt to use your subjective opinion of status as an objective measure of a persons or things worth/value.

I for example am a movie snob, there are certain kinds of movies that I will just dismiss as below my acceptable quality levels. I would consider this a mild form of snobbery.

Some other people are true snobs, they wont let you in their club unless you act like a little submissive cult member. I would consider this an extreme form.

Like Poisonedantidote said: using material to determine your status and judge others based on these materials.

The royal family of the united kingdom of brown nosing sychophants.
Yeah, that just about covers it.

The best examples come from my personal file of really fucked up narcissists. lol

Referring to everything they own by it’s brand name instead of it’s reality.

Instead of ” lets take my car” it’s ” let’s take the Audi”.

One of the most insufferable “snobs” I have ever known and kicked to the curb about 6 months ago is an ex “friend” who masquerades as the worlds most humble and “caring” human being, her personal mission in life is to tell everyone how morally superior she is and to constantly tell her stories of vainglory. lol

Gah!

My snobbery only plays out when dealing with character disordered people, do I feel superior? You bet! Must suck to be you! haha

One kind of snob has a feeling of superiority based on socio-economic class. This snob sees human worth as varying according to one’s station in life. ‘Nuf said.

Another kind takes pride in being discriminating. This goes beyond being able to tell what’s good and what’s bad; his sense of identity is interwoven with the quality of the music he listens to, the beer or wine he drinks, the company he keeps. He is extremely sensitive to the prevailing opinion of what constitutes “good” and “bad”, so that he wouldn’t allow himself to like something that connoisseurs sneer at.

There are snobs who take pride in their intellectual endowments and wear them as a badge of honor. This snob will likely have a decal with the name of his prestigious university on the back window of his car. He will bring up Chomsky at every available opportunity and drink coffee from a MENSA mug.

I am very pleased with the answers so far. The subtle forms of snobbery are pretty interesting and how there is something of a snob in most of us. For example some folks have to drive a nice car no matter if the bills are piled high and there’s mold up the walls of the house from the swimming pool leaking and they have no cash to get it fixed! I used to think of snob in socio-economic terms only: “The Devil Wears Prada” or even the comedy spin such as we saw in the Beverly Hillbillies.

Really the scope of “elitism” just isn’t broad enough. Snobbery has gone middle class. It is time I woke up and recognized that! More comments?

@thorninmud Haha, but Chomsky is a great writer, though, right?

@Blackberry Nec plus ultra.