I found the entire thread quite ironic.
OP is angry about some hardcore players feeling a sense of elitism, yet probably a solid 50% of his post is about why he is so elite. You have a great job, work a lot of hours, still kick ass in PoE, blablablabla...and you feel proud of that. And you should! But then you claim to not understand why people who spend all their times playing PoE would feel proud of their accomplishments.
Look, realistically we all know deep down that PoE doesn't matter for shit in the real world. You know it, I know it, the hardcore players saying "scrub this" and "scrub that" every 10 seconds also know it. However, it
happens to be the game we are all playing right now.
In my experience, the point of the game is to TAKE YOU OUT OF THE REAL WORLD!
People like to immerse themselves in the game and get good at it for any number of psychological reasons, but one of the more prominent ones is the constant feeling of progression - climbing the ranks, rising up the ladder, whatever terminology you want to use.
What this means is that it doesn't matter if you are a millionaire playboy athlete or an awkward pimply-faced nerd, you are placed on the same footing as everyone else when in the game world. In the game world, no one cares about (or believes) any accomplishments you may have made in the real world. They only care about your progress in the game. And why shouldn't they? You have both decided to play the same game.
Logically, all these people know that you may very well be a playboy-athlete-millionaire with a huge schlong; but in game you are just a low level noob on the easiest game setting. Should they shower you with respect because of what you may be in real life, or is it perhaps understandable that there may be some gentle ribbing there?
I think some empathy would go a long way in this situation. If OP, as he says, has actually been in the mindset where he wants to play 8hrs+ a day on a game like this, I can only imagine that deep down he does understand the mindset but has moved past it and refuses to empathize with that younger self.
"Scrubcore" is just a phrase, don't read into it so much. The sense of "elitism," if that's really what you want to call it, is a completely necessary part of the game.
Does beating the game on standard take the same amount of effort as beating it on invasion? Do you feel as accomplished doing it? From a purely objective perspective, do you think that it is as worthy of in-game respect?
I think the last term I just touched on is an important one to tie my whole post together. In-game respect. In-game respect and out of game respect are two VERY different things. In the game, your life accomplishments, your family, your job, are all irrelevant. I don't know you or anything about your life, so why should I try to take those things into account?
I guess in some idealized world it would be "nice" if everyone gave everyone else playing the game the benefit of the doubt and assumed that even if your character is level 10 on standard that you are their equal or better in every way and deserving of their respect.
Realistically? Fat chance bud. You're playing with teenagers who, as you know, are literally devoting their
life to this game. When someone spends so much time on something, they have to take it very seriously. When someone takes it so seriously, they take their progress seriously so they can feel PROUD of it! This feeling of PRIDE in their accomplishments is really what ultimately drives the look-down-the-nose at standard players. We all know being prideful to extreme is not a great virtue, but there it is and there you have it.
If you think long and hard, I think you can probably draw some really profound parallels between your real life accomplishments and pride in them, your feelings towards people who don't have those accomplishments; and the relation of this to the game world. Really OP, you have just moved on to a different game. A game in which the people calling you a scrub in poe are actually the scrubs. Do you really want to tell me you don't look down your nose at all at people, for example, who are still living with their parents and spending 8hrs a day playing this game? Of course you do.
Edit: One final thing I would like to add is that I think it's important to note that the "worst offenders" of this type of behavior, the truly vicious disparaging attacks on people just for being new or playing on standard, are coming from people with pretty serious psychological issues. Remember the awkward pimply-faced nerd I mentioned earlier? If you mentally put yourself in his shoes for a while, I think it becomes easier to understand. These kids probably have a very unrewarding or stressful life at home and really need the game world to develop ANY sense of self esteem at all, as crazy as that sounds. When you don't have a father figure and a good support system, it's easy to feel really shitty about yourself in real life, and the game can take you away from all that and make you into one of the more respected, more "elite," more whatever people. Of course then you will cling to that and probably in an unhealthy way. Anyway, I'm just saying to lighten up a bit and have some compassion. No one who works and has a family is looking down their nose at you for playing standard.
