[whatshisface]

You're treating it like people who would judge you based on the car you drive make some kind of high-minded ethical choice, but they're in reality looking for a reason to get their peers to accept a smaller group of people that still includes them, because that makes them relatively speaking higher status. They can't just make things up because they couldn't coordinate around that, but with Elon acting like a lighthouse, they can invent a new norm and benefit from being the first to adopt it.

[brookst]

Wow you really nailed your outgroup on that one!

[whatshisface]

It's not a group that's like this, it's a widely distributed human behavior (I'm not quite cynical enough to call it a universal human behavior although some would.)

[brookst]

Sure, but it’s those people who behave that way.

[whatshisface]

They're not a group in the sense of "an in(out)group." That would require some kind of identity. It's a behavioral tendency in the sense of having a short temper or being gregarious, rather than a belief system or a club.