Elitism is a heavily stigmatized ideology in the gaming community and due to the heavy prominence of condescending and insulting behaviors, people tend to avoid those who take gaming seriously. Now, as many know, I self describe as an elitist. I don't believe in carrying bad players or playing with them for the matter and my friends often take offense to it or think I'm a douche. However, the concept that many fail to grasp is that gaming is not just a hobby for some people. It's a daily ritual or a major part of his/her life. This could be because of many reasons from psychological and/or physical incapabilities and may pertain with limited social skills. Now, some elitists are genuinely just rude. I'm not speaking for the more extreme ones who literally harass casuals or bad players, which I unfortunately have done on several occasions, I'm speaking for the softer ones who just want to play with people of their caliber and demand harder content. Before I end this drawn out post, here are some good reasons why Elitism isn't as bad as you might think: 1. Elitists just want to play with good players: We're not usually as open to carrying as others and we find low skilled players incredibly annoying. We don't hate them per say, we just want to get things done with people with our level of skill and dedication without the immensely annoying screw ups. Think of like this: if you have a bad player and a good player, why would you pick the former over the latter? 2. We're usually the ones who get you your strategies: This isn't every awesome player, but elitists like Datto are the ones who discover the best strategies for Destiny, WOW, COD etc. It's near impossible being world's first for completing a level or publishing the best strategy for an incredibly difficult boss. 3. Not all of us are dicks: Not all elitists are socially incompetent teenagers. Some of us just value our games very highly and don't want people ruining our only fun time. Gaming, although a hobby for most, is the blood and lifeline for others.