Here We Go Round The Snobbery Bush

When I was a child, I was often made to play a game called 'Dumb Charades' or just 'Charades'. I never really liked it all that much. Moving awkwardly in front of a group of people was embarrassing for a rather shy seven year old. The fact that the people in question were working themselves up into a right frenzy (usually culminating in an orgasmic shriek of "Free Willy!", or something similar) didn't help much either. To top it all off, there were always some kids in the group who used to really get into it. They used to argue about how a particular action was not allowed ("Oh, yes it was!") or how someone spoke, or how the title was just too difficult and so on. Now, all this was fair enough. After all, it WAS a game, it WAS a party and all they were doing was enjoying it. The fact that it wasn't my cuppa was more my fault than theirs.

But some of these people have gone all poncey and decided to consider themselves 'artists'. It's not a kiddie game anymore. Oh no, it's 'interpretive dance'. Look at me as I express my innermost feeling by making swooshing movements and falling suddenly to the floor. Watch me bare my emotions (and much else besides) in my skin-tight but artistically torn spandex costume.

It's not the fact that they call it art that irritates me, though. I'm sure some of the performances are genuinely that. No, what pisses me off is that so many of these dancers - and much more importantly, people who claim enjoy watching these dances - consider themselves somehow more creative and artistically accomplished than the others who haven't quite embraced this art form with their fervour and enthusiasm. To remain unmoved by the sight of a grown, pot-bellied man writhing in an unnecessarily figure hugging costume is, apparently, to be uncultured.

This snobbery extends to other areas too. Take sushi, for instance. It's raw fish slapped onto rice, for fuck's sake. A ham and cheese sandwich is more of a culinary accomplishment. And yet there is no shortage of people - from arts undergrads at university to film actors portraying high-powered businessmen - talking about how the uncooked slab of orange flesh in front of them is the pinnacle of the art of food. Now don't get me wrong. I've had sushi. I like it too. Quite a bit, in fact. But to call it sophisticated cuisine is just ludicrous.

And it's not just the artsy classes either. The tough, cool crowd practice it too. I like some rap songs. But by and large, rap is banal poetry, recited badly by people flailing their arms about. And most of the lyrics seem to be disturbingly violent and misogynistic. And yet, if you don't like it, you ain't cool, mothafucka. It seems to be specific to rap too. You're allowed to dislike rock or jazz or any other kind of music without being judged.

But the most irritating of the bunch, personally speaking, are the Mac brigade. Now, I have nothing against Apple's products. I have an iPod Touch myself and love it. I don't have any beef with the people who claim Macs are better than PCs either. Maybe for what they do with them, they are. No, the irritating ones are those who believe that, just because they have bought a Mac, they have somehow BECOME more artistic and sensitive than the rest of us. You've just bought yourself a laptop that's twice as expensive as others with the same specs and all you're going to use it to do is write essays, because you're a third year student majoring in English Literature. Does it mean you're more artsy!?! No, it means you're a sucker.

None of the art forms/products mentioned above is bad in itself. I have personally seen genuinely good interpretive dance, tasted great sushi, heard very intelligent rap lyrics and, as stated, owned and loved an iPod. It's the attitude of many of the people who are aficionados of said art forms/products that gets on my nerves. "I'm a pelican! Now I'm a giraffe!" No, sir, you're a massive cock.