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Jumping the Snark
The internet features lots of snark, but precious little wit. Spend any time on social media, and you’ll find that most confuse the two.
Wit is defined as “the keen perception and cleverly apt expression of those connections between ideas that awaken amusement and pleasure.” Snark is “to be critical in a rude or sarcastic way.” Of course, sarcasm and rudeness can be funny, but the problem with most snark is its purely negative intent. Don Rickles is obnoxiously rude but everyone knows he doesn’t mean it. And funny sarcasm contains a wink to the recipient that it’s all in good fun. But snark holds the subject in contempt and the goal is harm him while virtue-signaling to the cool kids.
David Denby wrote an entire book about snark, aptly titled Snark, where he describes it as “that nasty combination of snide and sarcasm that goes beyond irony and satire to just plain ugliness.”
A semi-recent example of Denby’s definition was the left’s weird mockery of Mitt Romney’s “binders full of women” comment. His statement demonstrated how his governorship had more women in senior leadership positions than that of any other state. This didn’t just happen randomly, but Romney actively sought out qualified females to better represent his constituents.
Attacks from the left were quick and none made sense. The ersatz jokes never got to a punchline, leaning instead on the “Women? In binders? Really?!” formula that led Seth Meyers’s Weekend Update into laughless decline.
Making a statement and adding “Really?” is the Platonic ideal of snark. Humor isn’t even attempted, just a vague dismissal followed by a dumb grin, pencil tap, or raised eyebrow. It contains some trappings of comedy but none of the impact.
Snark is what unfunny people think is funny. It’s the comedian with lousy material who shouts it louder to spark a reaction. It’s the mean girls teasing the new kid at school because her hair is so last year. Snark offers no insights, but only flatters the biases of the author and the intended audience.
Worst of all, snark is lazy. Instead of offering a clever juxtaposition, a fresh turn of phrase, or a unique perspective, the snarker just mutters, “white people, am I right?” It’s a boring pose, revealing cynicism not comedy.
You want to disagree with me? In the comments? Really?!
Published in General
I agree that the reign of snark seems over now, but the impulses are still there–it is not merely that on a partisan basis, this is how Americans deal with each other. It’s also at a more basic, private level–that hasn’t died out & it won’t until some more serious things change. I believe the tendency to reply in sarcastic terms is a show of bitterness. Conservatives blame it all on liberals, who’ve never done anything for their country; liberals blame it on conservatives. But both sides have come to agree that there’s no future–the future is only about blaming the other side. This substitute for a future is really bitter & not all of charity.
People do not see a way out, an American future in which they can live together with the friendship of citizenship. So the sarcasm continues.
I think that’s now supposed to be part of what’s called being presidential. Very well stated.
I hate the laziness of snark. It’s an invitation for the listener to provide the joke. Some hack comic throws out a “Sarah Palin is so dumb. amirite?” the crowd “Wooooo”s and claps uproariously. But no joke was provided. The audience is supposed to bring their own joke. I thought that was the job of the comedian.
Why hasn’t anyone cited Al Franken as another case in point?
Weaponized sarcasm in the service of partisanship under the protection of artistic license as I see it.
Setting Al Franken aside I have been disappointed by Garrison Keillor in recent years. Nowadays any skit on Prairie Home Companion that includes a character who is an acknowledged gun owner or even an acknowledged opponent of new taxes is targeted for the most humorless vituperation.
Maybe it depends on who you associate with and also where you live. I work in IT, where many of those people are infected with snark. I don’t actually work in Silicon Valley, but I see and hear a lot of that in some of the podcasts that originate from there.
But, living in Fairbanks, Alaska, and working in a niche part of IT (electrical industrial controls) where I deal a lot with power engineers and power plant blue collar workers, I find an amazing lack of faux sophistication and more directness. Maybe because I’m dealing with a workforce that’s predominantly male, still mostly unfeminized, yet mostly without the crude humor that I saw in the nineteen-eighties.
And even the younger IT workers who deal in the more traditional corporate space are less cynical than their predecessors still in management.
I saw the same thing when I volunteered as a firefighter. The department I volunteered at had a lot of young firefighters come through who were gaining experience on their way to making it a career. Over time, I saw less cynicism and snark there as well.
I take it, the younger generation is less given to sarcasm? That seems plausible to me, but not as yet explained.
Stop trying to make “snark” happen, Jon.
I’m not sure I’d agree. Snark seems renewed and revitalized by ironic, affected hipsterism. This Oonion video hilarious (and snarkily?) captures it at its best/worst:
Ironically, the picture of Amy Poehler on a Weekend Update snark reminds me of her show, Parks and Recreation, which had a noted lack of cynicism, and the fun it poked was light hearted. The characters all had their foibles and vulnerabilities and weren’t superior to each other.
Perhaps the first season was a rough start with Andy Dwyer portrayed as a very unlikable bum, but by the second season they had worked out the kinks.
I especially liked the way they portrayed Jerry, who they were mean to, but who ended up having a home life that was the envy of everyone.
And I loved Amy Poehler’s smile.
As with many things, CS Lewis is prescient:
But flippancy is the best of all. In the first place it is very economical. Only a clever human can make a real Joke about virtue, or indeed about anything else; any of them can be trained to talk as if virtue were funny. Among flippant people the Joke is always assumed to have been made. No one actually makes it; but every serious subject is discussed in a manner which implies that they have already found a ridiculous side to it. If prolonged, the habit of Flippancy builds up around a man the finest armour-plating against the Enemy that I know, and it is quite free from the dangers inherent in the other sources of laughter. It is a thousand miles away from joy it deadens, instead of sharpening, the intellect; and it excites no affection between those who practice it,
Your affectionate uncle
SCREWTAPE
Such a great quote.
Actually, I think most millennials – and others – see Letterman as retired. :-)
More to the point, they do not see him.
Jon, well said. I’ve had similar thoughts on the subject. What you’re talking about in this post seems to have become a larger part of American pop culture. You mentioned snide. I would also add the word “catty” into the mix. I suppose some people feel that this is edgy or displaying how they’re really ‘with it’, but I think this has become too pervasive in society making it a more unpleasant place and corrosive.
A Twitter follower shared this sketch which nails snark perfectly. (Slight CoC violation at the link.)