Snob (noun) 1. one who tends to rebuff, avoid, or ignore those regarded as inferior. 2. one who has an offensive air of superiority in matters of knowledge or taste. --Merriam-Webster.com
I’ve got some bad news. Or good news, depending on where you think you stand in this life.
According to the job search website zippia.com, Massachusetts is the snobbiest of the fifty United States. That’s right. We’re number one in our overly inflated view of ourselves here in the Bay State. How zippia (sounds like a food delivery service--We get it to you ZIPPIA!) came to this conclusion is a bit suspect. Here’s their criteria: percentage of population with bachelor’s degrees, percentage of degree holders who studied arts and humanities, number of Ivy League colleges, and the kicker, 21 bottles of wine consumed yearly.
Thus, if I went to Harvard and studied art history while slugging back 4.1 gallons of wine, I’m a snob. Apologies if you fit this description. I don’t think I’m a snob. I went to UMass, studied English (strike 1), and stuck to drinking mostly Rolling Rock beers for my four years there and yes, it was a lot more than 525 ounces of Latrobe Pennsylvania’s golden hued libation per year. Okay—libation is kind of a snobby word, but back to the insult that we here in Massachusetts are like the two guys on the Grey Poupon mustard TV commercial.
When I ask friends not born here, if we are in fact snobby, they’re often quick to answer “Well, yes!” There’s our nickname for Boston: “the Hub”, as in the absolute center of the universe, a description penned by poet and Harvard man Oliver Wendell Holmes. We’ve also called ourselves the Athens of America, the Cradle of Liberty and Titletown, for all the sports championships we’ve won lately. But ask a Chicagoan or New Yorker if Boston really is the Hub and they’ll chuckle and point out that Beantown could easily fit into one of the neighborhoods in the Windy City or the Big Apple. Or the fact the New York Yankees have won twenty-seven world championships to our nine and they stole Babe Ruth too.
The Hub? Maybe not.
If snobbery is marked by thinking of yourself as better than others…do we really fit the bill? Do we sound like snobs, speak with a Boston Brahmin Kennedy-esque accent as in “chowdah” or do we actually speak like most of my relatives from Dorchester? You know, “Haavad”, and “cah”, and labeling everything as wicked good. That’s what I think of when it comes to our home. Not so high-falutin.
There’s also the fact Massachusetts claims more Dunkin’ Donuts per capita than any other state, one for every 6,072 people. What’s more down to earth than coffee in an orange emblazoned Styrofoam cup and yes, the first DDs opened in Quincy in 1950. Or that we invented Marshmallow Fluff, right here too, in Somerville. Or that we have a state polka, “Say Hello to Someone from Massachusetts.” Take that zippia!
And perhaps what might be the anti-snobbery fact that brings us back to earth: the plastic pink flamingo, was invented right here, in 1957, in Leominster, Massachusetts. If that isn’t downscale, and tacky and goofy, well nothing is. And yet….
Harvard University was the very first college for higher education, founded here in 1636 and the Boston Latin school is even older, established in Boston in 1635. Does the truth that we Bay Staters highly value education and knowledge make us snobby? Or what of the cliches about Harvard’s hometown? Some say it is the most opinionated zip code in America and others call it the People’s Republic of Cambridge. Lefties and liberals and progressive like me: we do tend to be self-righteous, even overly smug about our “rightness”, while driving around in our bumper sticker covered Volvos and Priuses, our feet shod in Birkenstocks, a six pack of the latest craft beer cooling in the backseat.
Maybe zippia is right! Who knows?
Let’s confess and own up to this: snobbishness is true for some and a false label for others. The ultimate truth is that no matter what the size of your bank account, no matter how posh your family tree might be, no matter how refined your accent is, no matter what school you went to, in the eyes of God, all those human-made distinctions are moot. Don’t matter at all. The God I know creates us all, not for self-righteousness, but for humility, as in being down to earth. Harvard or Holyoke Community College? I don’t really care. And most of the folks I know don’t get caught up in the race to the top of the heap either. I put my pants on one leg at a time and I know that you do too. Unless of course they’re Velcro.
Now, please excuse me. I need to sit out in my flamingo laden front yard and enjoy a fluffernutter, washed down by a large DD’s iced coffee, as I listen to the Sox on the radio.
Have you heard? They are a wicked good team this year!
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