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Snark
Snark
Snark
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Snark

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What is snark? You recognize it when you see it -- a tone of teasing, snide, undermining abuse, nasty and knowing, that is spreading like pinkeye through the media and threatening to take over how Americans converse with each other and what they can count on as true. Snark attempts to steal someone's mojo, erase her cool, annihilate her effectiveness. In this sharp and witty polemic, New Yorker critic and bestselling author David Denby takes on the snarkers, naming the nine principles of snark -- the standard techniques its practitioners use to poison their arrows. Snarkers like to think they are deploying wit, but mostly they are exposing the seethe and snarl of an unhappy country, releasing bad feeling but little laughter.

In this highly entertaining essay, Denby traces the history of snark through the ages, starting with its invention as personal insult in the drinking clubs of ancient Athens, tracking its development all the way to the age of the Internet, where it has become the sole purpose and style of many media, political, and celebrity Web sites. Snark releases the anguish of the dispossessed, envious, and frightened; it flows when a dying class of the powerful struggles to keep the barbarians outside the gates, or, alternately, when those outsiders want to take over the halls of the powerful and expel the office-holders. Snark was behind the London-based magazine Private Eye, launched amid the dying embers of the British empire in 1961; it was also central to the career-hungry, New York-based magazine Spy. It has flourished over the years in the works of everyone from the startling Roman poet Juvenal to Alexander Pope to Tom Wolfe to a million commenters snarling at other people behind handles. Thanks to the grand dame of snark, it has a prominent place twice a week on the opinion page of the New York Times.

Denby has fun snarking the snarkers, expelling the bums and promoting the true wits, but he is also making a serious point: the Internet has put snark on steroids. In politics, snark means the lowest, most insinuating and insulting side can win. For the young, a savage piece of gossip could ruin a reputation and possibly a future career. And for all of us, snark just sucks the humor out of life. Denby defends the right of any of us to be cruel, but shows us how the real pros pull it off. Snark, he says, is for the amateurs.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJan 13, 2009
ISBN9781439110089
Author

David Denby

David Denby has been film critic and staff writer at The New Yorker since 1998; prior to that he was film critic of New York magazine. His reviews and essays have also appeared in The New Republic, The Atlantic, and The New York Review of Books. He lives in New York City.

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Rating: 2.4444444444444446 out of 5 stars
2.5/5

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  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    The author presents a series of poorly-organised, hostile and ill-supported criticisms of what he sees as poorly-organised, hostile, and ill-supported criticism. There's actually a whole section in here about another writer that he doesn't like. As a monument to the author's lack of self-awareness and the editor's apparent disinterest in the affair, it's actually kind of interesting, but it's tedious to read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A brief, witty commentary on the ongoing decline of civility, cleverness, and humor in spoken and written communication.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Aeyan's review is interesting, and a good summary. I enjoyed this book, but felt bad about myself when I finished it. (I confess that I too like snarkiness; it makes me snort, which is one of the words the author discusses...I think... in connection with the origins of the word.)This IS the big question: "The underlying differentiation seems to stem from the usage of the written or verbal attack to merely denigrate, or whether it serves to elevate or illustrate with intent to rectify the failings of the subject." I suspect that the latter is the case. Worrisome.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    This book has the dubious honor of being only the second book I have ever thrown in the garbage, so that no one else would waste a moment of their precious time reading my copy. Other reviewers have thoroughly detailed its myriad problems with accuracy and being heinously guilty of the snark it claims to revile, so I won't re-hash. I will, however, chime in with the chorus of reviewers who find Mr. Denby's style pompous and sufficiently awful as to be downright unreadable. If I could give it zero stars, I would. Thank goodness I wasted only a dollar on this horrid little book.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This short book is an extended essay on Denby's views on the problem of snark in our public discourse. On the cover it says, "Snark. It's Mean, It's Personal, and It's Ruining Our Conversation." He distinguishes snark from the more esteemed and legitimate irony and satire: "snark, by contrast, has zero interest in civic virtue or anything else except the power of ridicule." He finds snark "irresponsible" and that it has "a common tendency" of "disengagement from the matter at hand." I didn't particularly like this book, and while reading I was thinking of what I'd say in my comments here, and planned to tell you that a university prof that I was friendly with told me she taught a class at Columbia University that Denby audited while he wrote Great Books, and that he was "an ass." Now I liked Great Books quite a bit (maybe because I was a mature student taking similar classes and so I could identify with some of what he wrote), and I've liked most of what I've read of his writing in the New Yorker, but I didn't much like Snark. While reading it, I kept thinking, "this guy IS an ass." Anyway, I probably shouldn't have shared this tidbit because, 1) it was told to me in a personal conversation, and 2), Denby would probably say I was using snark. And that's a bad thing. So ignore this paragraph. Anyway, although I didn't much like this book, I do think he has a point, and it is thought-provoking. I had planned to pass it on, but I think I'll hold it for a bit, and maybe reread it if it's still on my mind. A book that makes you think is a good thing, isn't it. Also, he holds Stephen Colbert in the highest esteem (just a notch down from Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal). And he dislikes Sarah Palin for her snarkiness (never mind all the other reasons). So that's all good.Recommended for: People interested in media and cultural studies. It's a quick read, so not much of a gamble if you think you might be interested.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Snarky is one of my favorite adjectives. For me it recalls a mode of surviving the degradations of corporate inanity, customer irritability, and coworker absurdity. Snark provided a vehicle to vent with sympathetic ears and alleviate tension with acid humor and commiseration. So when Denby's 'polemic in seven fits' released with this subtitle and the cover description of 'it's mean, it's personal, and it's ruining our conversation,' I was a bit taken aback. How could my favorite method of coworker relations be damaging our conversation? Deciding I had to engage with this lengthy essay to see if it was so much fluff or if Denby argued a valid point (I'd like to say I was open minded enough to entertain the latter, but it was mostly the former), I slipped into the very astute flow of his logic. Tracing the origins of the word itself to Lewis Carroll's 'The Hunting of the Snark: An Agony, in Eight Fits,' Denby delves further backward to historical antecedents such as the Roman Juvenal and Swift and Pope, taking it through the recent past as used within the English and American magazines 'Private Eye' and 'Spy.' Pulling us into modern usage, Denby then examines the innumerable explosions of snark that the Internet has carried forth, as everyone seeks to make their voice heard, increasingly finding that the vituperative and personal method of snark is the simplest method. At this point in the collective discourse, he states that this 'narrative of ascendancy and decline' is promulgated by nearly everyone, is unavoidable in its permutations, and has even extended into a type of media currency (84). The ascent refers to the proliferation of a type of celebrity status, quickly and viciously followed by an often near libelous reversal via snark. The ruination of modern conversation comes about in this personal vindictiveness that epitomizes snark, coupled with its lack of involvement on the part of the one writing the snark. Denby's comparative usages of snark versus his higher regarded use of irony and satire can appear somewhat tenuous, indeed he admits that each case is best judged individually, but he lays a somewhat loose guideline of the form for the reader to follow. He examines politics as one area rife with snark versus satire, holding Maureen Dowd up as the very intelligent but vacuous queen of snark compared to Stephen Colbert whose brilliance is in his elevated and engaged social satire. The underlying differentiation seems to stem from the usage of the written or verbal attack to merely denigrate, or whether it serves to elevate or illustrate with intent to rectify the failings of the subject. Denby ends with his invitation to cathartically commit all the vituperative acts of social satire and critique within one's ability, but to resist the temptation to slip into a snarky mode, and though I find myself a bit more situated to comfortably assert that my favorite method of verbal release remains a level above snark (usually, okay, sometimes), I cannot resist the wonderful glibness and succinctness that the word itself evokes. Thus will I continue to snark away, albeit with the knowledge that my discourse should retain the sense of satire that contributes to an increased awareness, rather than the merely nasty and useless bitching. Who am I kidding, snark is damn fun!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I will begin by saying that I loved Denby's Great Books and that is one reason why I picked this up to read at the library. In this book he thoroughly discusses snark in all its incarnations with accompanying examples of criticism, satire, irony, and snark. However, occasionally Denby gets carried away with his great gift of language and causes me to reread an entire paragraph or more to figure out what he tried to say. I found this extremely tedious and it detracted from my enjoyment and understanding of the book. Please be a little more concise for your less educated (but admiring) readers, David.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    So... what is snark?

    I think I had a better idea before starting this book. The author just seemed to be on a tirade against mean-spirited humor. But then some is okay if it's ironic or clever.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Too much of this slim volume was spent on the history of snark as well as splitting the hairs of snark, satire and criticism. While the definitions are important I would have appreciated more time on the impact that snark has on our conversations these days. Of course, the book was written in 2008 (published in 2009) and I'm reading it through the TikTok, Facebook, Twitter lens of 2020, so perhaps that's enough to slant my view. Perhaps it's time for an update?

Book preview

Snark - David Denby

ALSO BY David DENBY

American Sucker

Great Books

Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Copyright © 2009 by David Denby

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

SIMON & SCHUSTER and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN-13: 978-1-4391-1008-9

ISBN-10: 1-4391-1008-5

Visit us on the World Wide Web:

http://www.SimonSays.com

For Susan Rieger

For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.

—Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark

The hunt for snark never ends.

—Clive James, literary critic

Author’s Note

Lewis Carroll’s extraordinary and menacing nonsense poem, The Hunting of the Snark, published in 1876, was subtitled An Agony, in Eight Fits. It seems that fit was still extant in Victorian England as a term for canto. I have had one fewer fit than Lewis Carroll, yet I have retained his word. But more of this in the Second Fit.

Contents

The First Fit: The Republic of Snark

The Second Fit: A Brief, Highly Intermittent History of Snark, Part 1

The Third Fit: A Brief, Highly Intermittent History of Snark, Part 2

The Fourth Fit: Anatomy of a Style

The Fifth Fit: The Conscience of a Snarker

The Sixth Fit: Maureen Dowd

The Seventh Fit: What Is Not Snark

Reference List

Acknowledgments

Snark

THE FIRST FIT

The Republic of Snark

In which the author lays out the terrain of his momentous subject, defines the nature of snark, and distinguishes among high, medium, and low versions of the unfortunate practice.

This is an essay about a strain of nasty, knowing abuse spreading like pinkeye through the national conversation—a tone of snarking insult provoked and encouraged by the new hybrid world of print, television, radio, and the Internet. It’s an essay about style and also, I suppose, grace. Anyone who speaks of grace—so spiritual a word—in connection with our raucous culture risks sounding like a genteel idiot, so I had better say right away that I’m all in favor of nasty comedy, incessant profanity, trash talk, any kind of satire, and certain kinds of invective. It’s the bad kind of invective—low, teasing, snide, condescending, knowing; in brief, snark—that I hate.

Perhaps a few contrasts will make the difference clear. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert can be rough. Like all entertainers, they trust laughs more than anything else, and they wait for some public person to slip a stirrup and fall. We’re carrion birds, says Stewart, a man capable of describing Karl Rove as having a head like a lump of unbaked bread dough. But the Stewart/Colbert claws are sharpened in a special way. Even when pecking at a victim’s tender spots, they also manage to defend civic virtue four times a week. When Stephen Colbert, a liberal, wraps himself in the flag and bullies his guests in the manner of right-wing TV host Bill O’Reilly, he is practicing irony, the most powerful of all satiric weapons. Attacking the Bush administration, Colbert and Stewart were always trying to say, This is not the way a national government should behave. Snark, by contrast, has zero interest in civic virtue or anything else except the power to ridicule. When the comic Penn Jillette said on MSNBC in May 2008, that Obama did great in February, and that’s because that was Black History Month. And now Hillary’s doing much better ’cause it’s White Bitch Month, right? he was not, putting it mildly, practicing irony or satire. The remark was bonehead insult, but insult of a special sort. It spoke to a knowing audience—to white people irritated by black history as a celebration, and to men who assume an ambitious woman can safely be called a bitch. The layer of knowingness, in this case, was an appeal to cranky ill will and prejudice. Jillette’s joke was snark. A question I found as a comment on a right-wing blog—Is Obama a fat-lipped nigger—or what?—is simple racist junk. But a student named Adam LaDuca, formerly president of the Pennsylvania Federation of College Republicans, wrote on his Facebook page that Obama was nothing more than a dumbass with a pair of lips so large he could float half of Cuba to the shores of Miami (and probably would). That remark, in its excruciating humor and its layer of knowing reference, is tin-plated snark (and also racist junk).

Snark is not the same as hate speech, which is abuse directed at groups. Hate speech slashes and burns, and hopes to incite, but without much attempt at humor. Some legal scholars—most notably, Jeremy Waldron, of New York University—have argued that the United States, a tumultuous, multiethnic country with many vulnerable minorities, should consider banning hate speech by law, as some countries in Europe have done. But that is not my concern here; the legal issues lie far beyond the range of this essay, and, in any case, I am against censorship in any form, on the usual ground that it will choke legitimate critical speech as well as vicious rant. I will hunt the snark but leave hate speech alone. I will also ignore the legions of anguished, lost people on Web sites and the social networking site Facebook who are convinced that, say, Barack Obama is the Antichrist (Buraq was the name of Muhammad’s horse!), and who fly about wildly, like bats trapped in a country living room, looking for a way to release fear. Madness and paranoia are not the same as snark.

Nor am I talking about the elaborately sadistic young sports known on the Internet as trolls. These are technically enabled young men, part hackers, part stalkers, who pull such pranks as teasing the parents of a child who has committed suicide or sending flashing lights onto a Web site for epileptics. The lights may cause seizures. Fun! The trolls have a merry time screwing people up. What they do violates existing statutes, * and if federal and state authorities had the energy and resources to pursue them, the trolls could probably be prosecuted for harassment. So far they have gone largely unpunished, but I leave them to the cops and prosecutors. Finally, I will bypass the issue of political correctness, which, rightly or wrongly, is a way of protecting groups against calumny and lesser slights. Political correctness actually shares one leading characteristic with snark—it refuses true political engagement, the job of getting at the truth of things. All too often, PC tries to rein in humor that might brush against a truth. What I’m doing here—hunting the snark—is a way of preserving humor. Those of us who are against snark want to humble the lame, the snide, and the lazy—and promote the true wits.

Snark attacks individuals, not groups, though it may appeal to a group mentality, depositing a little bit more toxin into already poisoned waters. Snark is a teasing, rug-pulling form of insult that attempts to steal someone’s mojo, erase her cool, annihilate her effectiveness, and it appeals to a knowing audience that shares the contempt of the snarker and therefore understands whatever references he makes. It’s all jeer and josh, a form of bullying that, except at its highest levels, beggars the soul of humor. In the 2000 presidential campaign, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times had Al Gore so feminized and diversified and ecologically correct, he’s practically lactating in one column and buffing his pecs and ridging his abs in another column. Which was it? Effeminate or macho? Snark will get you any way it can, fore and aft, and to hell with consistency. In a media society, snark is an easy way of seeming smart. When Harvard professor Samantha Power resigned from Obama’s campaign on March 7, 2008, after calling Hillary Clinton a monster, Michael Goldfarb’s comment, on the blog of the conservative magazine the Weekly Standard, was Tell us something we don’t know. Power’s remark is a plain insult; Goldfarb’s, with its cozy we, which adds a twist of in-group knowingness, is snark. Snark doesn’t create a new image, a new idea. It’s parasitic, referential, insinuating.

Of course, snark is just words, and if you look at it one piece at a time, it seems of piddling importance. But it’s annoying as hell, the most dreadful style going, and ultimately debilitating. A future America in which too many people sound mean and silly, like small yapping dogs tied to a post; in which we insult one another merrily in a kind of endless zany brouhaha; in which the lowest, most insinuating and insulting side threatens to win national political campaigns—this America will leave everyone, including the snarkers, in a foul mood once the laughs die out. At the moment, there are snarky vice presidential campaigns (Sarah Palin’s mean-girl assault on Barack Obama as someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country…This is not a man who sees America like you and I see America.); snark-influenced crafts (advertising); an enormous, commercially flourishing snark industry (celebrity culture); snarky news-and-commentary cable TV shows, left and right; and snark words, such as whiny and whiner, which are often used to cut the ground under anyone with a legitimate complaint. Senator John McCain, displaying some creative flair in his attacks on Barack Obama on October 15, 2008, added a snarky visual effect (perhaps a first in a presidential debate) to ordinary sarcasm, by holding up his fingers for air quotes around the word health in a discussion on abortion: Here again is the eloquence of Senator Obama—the ‘health’ of the mother. You know, that’s been stretched by the pro-abortion movement in America to mean almost anything. By using air quotes (was he channeling the late Chris Farley?), McCain was sending a sportive signal to pro-lifers—that’s the snarky part—but also suggesting, perhaps unconsciously, that the heath of the mother was somehow irrelevant to the matter of abortion. At the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, snark sounds like the seethe and snarl of an unhappy and ferociously divided country, a country releasing its resentment in rancid jokes. It’s a verbal bridge to nowhere. I’ve been accused of writing some myself.*

The practice has often been mislabeled. Snark is not the same thing,

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