Does snark cast a shadow over online conversation?

If you weren't lucky enough to catch it in the car this morning, you should be sure to check out NPR's fascinating discussion of "snark" and its ill effects on the world.

I've often been called a snarky blogger, which is probably merited by some of my posts on AdFreak. But I've actually tried to avoid the sneering condescension that became synonymous with blogging due to the success of sites like Gawker.

Thanks to my time in newspapers, I know what it's like to be eviscerated by anonymous callers, bloggers and public figures. It made me come to value earnest criticism, however angry it happens to be, and ignore hollow bullying hurled from the gallows mob.

NPR's interview is with David Denby, author of a new book called "Snark." He makes a valiant attempt at drawing the distinction between snark and satire, although I don't know if he accomplishes the goal.

True snark, however dispariging, requires a decent amount of intelligence to pull off. Personally, I think the Internet is about 1,000 times more plagued by people who think "lol ur gay" is a pointed social critique.

Comments

[logosmith]

C.S. Lewis, decades before the internet, spoke of "flippancy" as a problem plaguing British culture (he would have been speaking of the culture of the '40s and '50s, I think). He described it thus:

"Among flippant people the Joke is always assumed to have been made."

And yeah, he capitalized Joke. I think he saw it as this systemic, even diabolical kind of cancer of the personality. I think what you're talking about is much the same problem. Sure, we're all sarcastic sometimes, but Snarkiness or flippancy is this perpetual state of nastiness, and when you get to the bottom of it, there's not really a Joke under it all, except the person's personality, or lack thereof. And like skepticism, we all have some of it, but a complete case is both rare and incurable...

[Ian Sohn]

I enjoy smart snark, but hope the age of cruelty is over.

This post reminds me of this clip (from a post I wrote nearly two years ago) http://www.flaggedforfollowup.com/2007/04/culture_of_mean.html