The very nature of anything elite is that it’s a closed-doors, highly exclusive “club” – the polar opposite of the core of social media, which is openness and transparency. You can’t have your cake and brag about it.

And, she’s right on the money, in the pejorative use of the word, Elitism that we’re discussing. In fact some sources (Wikipedia, for one) go as far as to suggest that “discrimination” could be a more accurate term for this kind of Elitism.

“The term elitism is also sometimes misused to denote situations in which a group of people claiming to possess high abilities or simply an in-group or cadre grant themselves extra privileges at the expense of others. This debased form of elitism may be described as discrimination.”

Discrimination = Exclusionary. Fact.

Yes, I agree that you must do the best for yourself, but only to an extent. At some point, the best thing you could possibly do for yourself, is work with others, enter into collaborative projects, and sacrifice a little time to create something bigger than yourself.

Elitists only focus on themselves, and what’s best for them, disregarding the core values of the sphere they’re trying to be elitist in. In 2008, you just can’t do that anymore.

Andre – Agreed to a point. I personally much prefer making my point with actions. So if I can begin to do well for myself and my clique or support structure and in the end through my action remove the “bully” from the game, then so be it. Someone once told me “The best revenge is to live well”.

instead the focus should be on collectively achieving something. Not as an individual, but as a gathering. Creating an elitism, your own, or attempting to fit into others’ is based on exclusion, and from what i gather, that’s not what blogging/twitter etc is about.

it’s about inclusion – getting as many people as possible sharing opinions on something, learning from each other and growing.

How does an elitism, in any way, shape or form contribute to that?

I’m all for taking over South Africa and getting everyone on Twitter/blogging (dream that’ll probably never come true, oh well), but if we stop now, and consider ourselves “there” in terms of growth, we’ll never get beyond 0.01% penetration.

Elitism shouldn’t be a driving force. It basically means you want to get better and bigger so you can show it off to the rest of the world. That’s not the right way to do it, imo. Because then, everything you do feeds back into your own ego, it’s all about you, and eventually, people move on – what you got left, then?