On snobbery

This topic is something that has been troubling me for a while and I can't give a clear answer on it. So let's see if I can get something rational about it down on paper...

Being a snob is something that has become a sort of long running joke with a friend of mine. He accuses me of being a snob, but I don't really consider myself one. I'll grant that I get annoyed of people who buy fake Louis Vuitton bags, and other such things, and I would typically leave something unbought than to buy a fake, or a copy. But that's not because of snobbery, as defined by dictionaries. The primary reason is that I don't like cheating, plagiarism, or anything of the kind. And with fake goods, the problem is two folded...

First of all, someone went through the trouble of designing something, creating a brand, etc. It isn't easy to create something like that. That's something that should be recognized and given credit to. By buying fake stuff, you're in fact not supporting or giving credit to the original creator, but just acting in a childish "I want, I want, I want" fashion. The motive must be some sort of posing, since fake goods are typically of lower quality. Which brings me to the second point...

Because of the cheap price, the goods are typically of lower quality. I'm a firm believer in betting on quality over quantity, mostly because poor people can't afford to buy cheap. It's not because of snobbery, it's because I value quality, that I try to always buy the best that I can afford at the moment. If the quality which I can afford doesn't satisfy me, I just don't buy it. And this seems to be something that may appear as snobbery to some people, but the motives are what distinguish between snobbery and something else.

So to sum it up, no, I wouldn't consider myself a snob, as I'm not trying to elevate myself to some class I'm not in nor am I trying to imitate such classes. And as far as I know, those are precisely the key points of snobbery. I'd rather like to think that I lean more towards perfectionism and value traditions and handicraft. As a matter of fact, I would even go so far as to suggest that the people buying fake purses are in fact a rather large group of snobs themselves. Granted, the end goals are sometimes the same (e.g. I wouldn't mind wearing an Omega Speedmaster), but whereas a snob would obtain something - the Omega - to show off, I would want it because of its beauty, elegance, quality and because I value the knowledge and skill required to make a watch of that calibre. And that's the key point.