Snobs are good. The world would be a more uniform, uglier, tasteless place without people who are unimpressed with the status quo and think greater aesthetic or olfactory achievements are possible. Without people who think film as a medium can achieve soaring beauty, we'd be stuck with only Marvel movies (forgive me, fans of the movies). Without visionaries who look at our built form and see its potential to dazzle us, we'd be stuck with drab fast casual apartment buildings and Khruschyovkas. Not a world I would want to live in.
I think people have such negative reactions to "snobs" (or really anyone who insists there are better things out there to enjoy) for one of two reasons. The first is they often just don't actually care about having refined consumption for some category of good/service (I'll admit that I am to a small degree this way with tea), so when a snob comes around and puts down whatever replacement-level thing they're buying, they feel as if they're being forced to care about something that wasn't even on their radar. The second, I suspect, is that people often have an internal fear that they're part of the lowest common denominator, something they want to view as beneath them. When someone comes by and says that there are, in fact, better things, their position in the consumption refinement ladder is put into sharp focus. I think even people who *are* into good wine aren't free from this, as there's always a ladder of people with *more* refined taste that they might be intimidated by.
Not everyone who's like this is trapped though! Some people are more than willing to open their mind when you approach them with a little tact and cater to their curiosity. None of this matters for a written article, of course, and I think the people mad at your are just annoying. Keep doing what you're doing.
These two articles make me wonder about the Venn diagram overlap of celebrity wines and Sysco wines. I recently had a dinner at a French restaurant in Philly. Could not decide on the wine so asked the sommelier who suggested one red. I asked him "why?" and ended up with a really nice glass of wine - not named Chloe or Wild Goose Chase. Expertise FTW!
Snobs are good. The world would be a more uniform, uglier, tasteless place without people who are unimpressed with the status quo and think greater aesthetic or olfactory achievements are possible. Without people who think film as a medium can achieve soaring beauty, we'd be stuck with only Marvel movies (forgive me, fans of the movies). Without visionaries who look at our built form and see its potential to dazzle us, we'd be stuck with drab fast casual apartment buildings and Khruschyovkas. Not a world I would want to live in.
I think people have such negative reactions to "snobs" (or really anyone who insists there are better things out there to enjoy) for one of two reasons. The first is they often just don't actually care about having refined consumption for some category of good/service (I'll admit that I am to a small degree this way with tea), so when a snob comes around and puts down whatever replacement-level thing they're buying, they feel as if they're being forced to care about something that wasn't even on their radar. The second, I suspect, is that people often have an internal fear that they're part of the lowest common denominator, something they want to view as beneath them. When someone comes by and says that there are, in fact, better things, their position in the consumption refinement ladder is put into sharp focus. I think even people who *are* into good wine aren't free from this, as there's always a ladder of people with *more* refined taste that they might be intimidated by.
Not everyone who's like this is trapped though! Some people are more than willing to open their mind when you approach them with a little tact and cater to their curiosity. None of this matters for a written article, of course, and I think the people mad at your are just annoying. Keep doing what you're doing.
These two articles make me wonder about the Venn diagram overlap of celebrity wines and Sysco wines. I recently had a dinner at a French restaurant in Philly. Could not decide on the wine so asked the sommelier who suggested one red. I asked him "why?" and ended up with a really nice glass of wine - not named Chloe or Wild Goose Chase. Expertise FTW!