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Snark is not original. It is essentially parasitic and lazy.

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#2

snark is not original. it is essentially parasitic and lazy.

Posted: 1/14/09 at 2:20pm

first.
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#3

snark is not original. it is essentially parasitic and lazy.

Posted: 1/14/09 at 2:24pm

Very interesting, particularly in terms of another thread about people texting and using cell phones in social situations, which I thought was directly connected to the erosion of any sense of private vs. public space and time.

A few of the respondents have been unremittingly snarky, I noticed, but I never thought to connect the two.
#5

snark is not original. it is essentially parasitic and lazy.

Posted: 1/14/09 at 2:36pm

It's also dishonest. It seems to me that it's anger and aggression disguised as humor.

It's also usually coupled with cowardice. When you challenge someone on their snarkiness, you often get a "Come on, I was joking! You need to get a sense of humor."
#7

snark is not original. it is essentially parasitic and lazy.

Posted: 1/14/09 at 2:39pm

I love a good smack-down, when it's deserved.

But I find people who's first move is a snotty, supposedly funny remark to be invariably tedious.

But maybe that's just me. (That was non-snark, by the way. I'm aware that some things bother me that don't bother everyone else.)
#9

snark is not original. it is essentially parasitic and lazy.

Posted: 1/14/09 at 2:42pm

I love a good verbal sparring and sarcasm. What I find cloying are those that ONLY do it. All the time. With nothing ELSE to add. Be snarky if you want - but then offer something of substance to the conversation. JUST being snarky is parasitic.
"A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men" - Willy Wonka
#10

snark is not original. it is essentially parasitic and lazy.

Posted: 1/14/09 at 2:45pm

Do you want me to personally apologize to you for making snarky comments in the texting thread, Reginald Tresilian? Because I didn't make them towards you, and the person I did make them towards has already contacted me privately about it. If it's cowardice to clarify when something is a joke, isn't it cowardice to continue the cycle of snark as you have? With all your veiled comments that won't address your problem with me specifically?

Anyway. Interesting article. I obviously can't agree entirely, as my own snarkiness has been none so subtly railed upon recently. I definitely agree with his points in regards to journalism, though.

Updated On: 1/14/09 at 02:45 PM

#12

snark is not original. it is essentially parasitic and lazy.

Posted: 1/14/09 at 2:51pm

True dat.

I love a good verbal sparring and sarcasm. What I find cloying are those that ONLY do it. All the time. With nothing ELSE to add.

That makes sense. But the problem I've run into, especially in various Broadway communities, is that if you're both snarky and earnest in varying degrees they especially don't take you seriously. I loved a certain show that I also tended to make fun of. I would post my jokes, and I would also post lengthy comments about the actual substance of the show. People got even angrier, like I was somehow pretending. The internet specifically doesn't often allow for people to communicate with a human persona. They expect you to be serious, or they expect you to be sarcastic, people have a hard time when you're both.

Updated On: 1/14/09 at 02:51 PM

#13

snark is not original. it is essentially parasitic and lazy.

Posted: 1/14/09 at 2:51pm

"To seek it with thimbles, to seek it with care;
To pursue it with forks and hope;
To threaten its life with a railway-share;
To charm it with smiles and soap!

"For the Snark's a peculiar creature, that won't
Be caught in a commonplace way.
Do all that you know, and try all that you don't:
Not a chance must be wasted to-day!
My avatar is a reminder to myself. I need lots of reminders...
#15

snark is not original. it is essentially parasitic and lazy.

Posted: 1/14/09 at 2:54pm

Is it a snark or is it a boojum?
"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." Thomas Pynchon, GRAVITY'S RAINBOW "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Philip K. Dick My blog: http://www.roscoewrites.blogspot.com/
#17

snark is not original. it is essentially parasitic and lazy.

Posted: 1/14/09 at 3:07pm

First of all, I think you have to be bright to make a good snark. However, exactly as Reg said-if you're the first one to make the snark, you deserve whatever you get back.

I don't care how good you are at it, it's nasty, and the person who starts it has the problem.

I'm speaking in general now.
<-----I'M TOTES ROLLING MY EYES
#19

snark is not original. it is essentially parasitic and lazy.

Posted: 1/14/09 at 3:11pm

Well, I'm speaking generally too: I think everyone likes humor, well-done sarcasm, whatever you'd like to call it.

But to my mind, snark is unpleasant. It's aggressive and usually rude, disguised with humor. But unless the reader is an idiot, they know that they've been aggressed upon, not merely teased.

Of course, as Craww points out, there's no inflection on the internet, and things can certainly be misread.
#20

snark is not original. it is essentially parasitic and lazy.

Posted: 1/14/09 at 3:14pm

"But I find people who's first move is a snotty, supposedly funny remark to be invariably tedious."

"I don't see where he said that."


Please excuse me Craww. I was expounded on the first part of Reggies statement, about the one who starts being snarky first.
<-----I'M TOTES ROLLING MY EYES
#22

snark is not original. it is essentially parasitic and lazy.

Posted: 1/14/09 at 3:17pm

David Denby really loses me in that interview.

"It is a case-by-case basis. Most people who are trying to be true use sarcasm or wit to speak the truth, but not snark."

He seems to want to be an authority on what is and isn't snark, more than anything.

"I think if newspapers subside into the Web and lose their hard copy, they just become one voice among many. Everyone has a point of view then, and there is no authority."

Ooop, there's that authority issue again.

"Half the words written as instant messages or Twitter are snark of one sort or another." Why do you think this? Do you Twitter? Are you on Facebook?

Denby: I don’t Twitter. It’s just a guess. From conversations with friends."

Man oh man, my eyes are having a hard time de-rolling from the back of my head.

Twitter @NamoInExile Instagram none

Updated On: 1/14/09 at 03:17 PM

#24

snark is not original. it is essentially parasitic and lazy.

Posted: 1/14/09 at 3:21pm

But unless the reader is an idiot, they know that they've been aggressed upon, not merely teased.

I don't intend to aggress upon people when I'm snarky. When I'm trying to aggress upon people I just tell them how I feel in no uncertain terms.

I don't know. I see how people would feel that way, I just disagree that snark itself is inherently as nasty as the article or these responses suggest. I think like all forms of communication, it depends on context and the words chosen and the people speaking and the people listening.

I also think it's funny that we're even discussing it as snark. They blame the internet for the mass proliferation of snarkiness, but the internet is what popularized the term itself. That would have been an interesting metatextual aside, I wonder if it made it into the book.
#25

snark is not original. it is essentially parasitic and lazy.

Posted: 1/14/09 at 3:26pm

Craww, I absolutely agree that it depends on context--to a degree. And that's part of the problem.

Teasing your friends comes with an entire history of your relationship; a random comment that, while possibly funny also has an edge of unkindness to it, is made to a stranger comes across as aggression, I think.

And some humor is more obvious than others. Making a pun or riffing on the topic at hand is easier to do without other context. A personal remark? Much less so.

Incidentally, I also agree with you about the word "snark." I just sort of gave up fighting it, since we were all trying to have a conversation about it.

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