Responses to newcomers seem awfully unwelcoming these days

so I was scouring the front page today and there were two posts I noticed that were from people that are relatively new to the Hobby and made a point to explain how they weren't "audiophiles."

in one case one of them just spent money on an extremely expensive pair of headphones and yet it's interesting how they still don't like to use the term because they feel like they'll be judged.

Yet judge they were anyways, despite their acknowledgment up front that they're new to the Hobby. in one case someone was accused of having objectively bad taste in headphones. because they preferred a consumer facing brand.

in another example someone had a very expensive set but used an EQ preset that other people thought was "trash". and they were mocked by quite a few. And these posts got a few upvotes. .

and at least one of the cases the person just deleted their account probably feeling either intimidated or just unwelcome.

why? Preference and sound signature is inherently subjective. Everyone seems to recognize this and yet immediately judges people because they like a v-shaped sound signature or a popular consumer facing product.

it's already pretty telling that people that spend a lot of money and time following audio products always seem to distance themselves from the term audiophile. like they clearly love audio but they either think they'll be judged or ridiculed.

and even despite their qualifier they were mocked.

Like do we want people not to get into this hobby?

tl:dr: can people stop being judgmental smug pricks to people that are new to the Hobby or have favorite products that don't jive with the consensus around here?