[gumby]

"Elite" simply means "drawn out of the larger pool". Sure, there is a lot of social baggage around that word, as in a sense of superiority, but the in the general case there is no such implication.

What's wrong with hanging around with folks who get your jokes (and vice versa)? They don't have to form the totality of your identity.

Somehow it seems uncontroversial when someone finds a group of, say, fans of their favorite team (or rock band) and says, "now I am with my people!" Is there some peculiar difference in regards to books or maths jokes?