Preferences vs. Snobbery

Hi guys, good morning, it's Tom. Beautiful, beautiful Saturday morning here in lovely Stamford, Connecticut. Blue sky, still a little bit of snow on the ground. Gorgeous day. Thanks so much for all the responses on the "What Kind of Snob Are You?" video, and this is actually going to be a follow-up for me to that one. I could do a follow-up on a couple of my recent videos because some of the responses that I've gotten have just been terrific. I really, I really appreciate it, and it's, um, uh, it's really what makes YouTube such a great place for me is that there are, there are so many interesting people here, and we get into what I think are some pretty interesting conversations. And the, the one about snobbery was one that I wanted to follow, was the one I wanted to follow up on, and I really wanted to, uh, to take up the issue that H. Marty brought up in the comments, which is pointing at the distinction between having preferences for something and being a snob about something. So for me, here's the difference. First of all, you know, why do we have such strong preferences about things? I mean, bottled water, ringtones. Dr. Leamer has a preference, has a snob— he's a ringtone snob. Whoever would have thought somebody would be a ringtone snob? Well, What that says is that obviously it's possible to be a snob about anything. Now, I think that's a kind of a distinction. In the past, we equated, I think, snobbery with a certain kind of a class sort of distinction. You know, it was supposed to be— and Billy Biggin did this in his video response— you know, kind of the nose in the air, the aristocrats were supposed to be the ones, uh, who were snobs. Not the movie, come on. That was supposed to be the snobs, and that, you know, the working people, the, the what used to be called the— is it— never mind. The, the, the working class people, the everyday people, we were never snobs. It was only the upper class who were snobs. Ah, now we see that snobbery has become more, um, egalitarian. We all can be snobs. Excuse me. Now, what, what does that mean? Okay, for me, what it means is this: it's, it's not just a matter of having a preference for something. We all have preferences for something. It's what are the consequences in our minds about the people who don't have the same preferences that we do. So think of it this way. I think it was Pink Dragon who asked, who kind of was a little confused about the question and was kind of having a hard time getting into it. And I responded to her and I said, you know, it's sort of like, you know, every object, and not just objects, every sort of everything around us now has a story wrapped around it. Right? It's got a story that has either been created or aided by marketing. In most instances, marketing tries to take objects and wrap stories about them. Look, I've got this notebook, right? This is a notebook that many people call a moleskin. I'm a snob because I know it has a kind of an Italian heritage, so it's actually moleschina. But it has a K in it, which means it's not legitimately Italian. Be that as it may, this is simply a lined notebook, you know. It's— and, uh, I started using my Moleskine notebook about 6 years ago, about just about 6 years ago. Now, since that time— and nobody used Moleskine notebooks at the time, right? They were very obscure. I started using them I introduced them to some friends of mine. They started using them, and suddenly the Moleskine notebook has become a very, very chic, popular item. You know, it's sort of like— here's the story part. First of all, they tell you a story about this notebook because they tell you that this was a notebook— they actually include the story in with the notebook, and they include the story in, uh, let's see, which— how many languages? English, Italian, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, and I think that's Portuguese. All right, so these languages, and it's the story of the notebook. So they're telling you, here's the story of this notebook, this is what you're— this is the meaning that you're supposed to attach to this notebook. And I won't read the whole story to you, but let me just read the first paragraph. Moleskine is the legendary notebook— legendary notebook— used by European artists and thinkers. Okay, meaning, meaning, meaning being tacked onto this object. It's a, it's a notebook with lined pages on it. Uh, for the past two centuries, from Van Gogh to Picasso, "From Ernest Hemingway to Bruce Chatwin." Now, I don't know who Bruce Chatwin is, but I guess I'm supposed to because I own the notebook. "This trusty pocket-sized travel companion held sketches, notes, stories, and ideas before they were turned into famous images or pages of beloved books." Okay, so that's the story that they want to wrap around this object, right? Attachment with Picasso. I have this notebook. Ernest Hemingway had this notebook. Ergo, right, me and Ernie, we're soul brothers. We're, you know, we're together. Now, when I see someone who is carrying a Moleskine notebook, certainly when I saw someone back in the day, you know, back in the Moleskine day, back in 2001 and 2002, I thought, oh man, there's a kindred spirit, there's somebody just like me. Now I see somebody with a Moleskine notebook and I go Oh yeah, there's somebody who's like got in on the Moleskine thing. But we still have an affinity because we have this kind of notebook. Now, if I see somebody with another kind of notebook— so let's say for argument's sake I'm a notebook snob. I'm a Moleskine notebook snob. Now, really the test of whether or not I'm a snob is what happens when I see somebody who's carrying another kind of notebook. And the Let's go back to the American Idol and to the NASCAR and to the Walmart examples. Fill in the blank of this kind of— just fill in the blank. People who shop at Walmart are— people who shop at Target are— now, as you complete those sentences, you begin to get a sense of the stories that are the placeholders in your thinking for those brands. And by extension, the people who are associated with those brands therefore partake in that story. So the snobbery part, I think, comes in when we start to make very powerful attributions about the personal characteristics and lives and life stories of people who are using those brands, who carry these kinds of objects, who have certain kinds of ringtones, who use certain kinds of computers and operating systems and all sorts of things. So, anyway, I just wanted to get into that a little bit further because you guys came up with some terrific, terrific examples. And, you know, I think this is an important aspect of our modern lives. Because marketing and stories are everywhere in our lives. And those of us who think that we are immune to marketing and to stories and that we don't, we don't respond to those things, I think we have to think again because these are pervasive aspects of modern culture and modern life. So thanks again a whole lot and have a great weekend and see you soon. Bye-bye.