Gamer lables -- why

[Elazu]

It keeps going because some people who clear difficult things want to inflate their e-peen by pretending it makes them part of some Special Cool Kid Club when in reality it just means they beat a hard thing in a video game. So they label themselves "hardcore", and anyone below their mythic status is "a casual".

In general, people want to beat difficult things for the challenge, gear and other rewards, it's only the casuals who believe that the evil raiders do it for e-peen and to look down on you. If you actually think the raiding community cares enough about you to go beat raids just to look down on you, you have issues.

FFXIV enforces this distinction too. Alex Savage is the only hardcore content in the game, everything else is casual/easy and there is currently no midcore content at all.