Learning Greek

So, I'm writing this in English cos I doubt what I'm describing below is some exclusive greek phenomenon.

I am from Thessaly, but have spent most of my adult life in Thessaloniki. Being looked upon strangely or made fun of for speaking in a light thessalian accent or using more colourful, non-standard words has been a constant annoyance ever since I moved here. Personally it made be all the more pissed off and use it even more, but I can understand people being shamed into conforming linguistically. It's doubly annoying cos Thessalonians WILL complain that people from Athens do this constantly to them (and they do). And at the same time the same people will agree that young people use too many foreign words and our language is declining, while they are subverting our linguistic richness by shaming people into a pointless uniformity. Not to mention the stereotypes that accompany any dialect that is deemed "rural"

It drives me nuts, but makes me all the more willing to preserve my dialectal heritage.

What have been your experiences with this? Have you experienced liguistic bullying? Non Greek people, does this happen in your countries and native language as well? (rhetorical; I'm sure it happens, but would like to hear about it)

PS: to the user that thought I would make an excellent standup comedian by making fun of Thessalonians and then deleted the comment in the thread about "αποψε", no hard feelings. I know where you're coming from. You're the reason I'm starting this discussion.