A Culture of Snark

[LizzieMaine]

If there's one word that could sum up today's pop culture, it's "snarky" -- that sort of swaggering, wiseacre attitude that sees everything and everyone as fair game for rude, crude commentary. My generation had the National Lampoon and the original Saturday Night Live as the spearheads of this attitude, and even as insulated as I was from much of the pop culture of the '70s, I couldn't help but absorb some of this attitude myself. There was a time when I could be quite lethal with my wisecracks, as my tenth-grade English teacher never fails to remind me whenever I run into her.

But now I find that, the older I get, the less appealing I find this sort of "wit." The blogosphere is saturated in snarkiness, you can't turn on commercial radio without being inundated by talkmeisters scrambling to out-snark each other, and movie and TV comedy are pretty much non-stop snark. We see it all around us, it's part of the cultural landscape, and it never seems to stop.

And I am *so sick of it.*

As far as I can tell, the Culture of Snark stopped being funny a long time ago, and frankly, a lot of it never *was* funny. Am I right? Or am I just becoming a cranky middle aged lady who's one step away from yelling at the neighborhood kids to stay off her lawn?

 

[Fletch]

I hope you don't include the hallowed tradition of curmudgeonry under the heading of snark. A curmudgeon is rarely rude or crude, tho s/he may be blunt and even brusque at times.


A curmudgeon's reputation for malevolence is undeserved. They're neither warped nor evil at heart. They don't hate mankind, just mankind's absurdities. They're just as sensitive and soft-hearted as the next guy, but they hide their vulnerability beneath a crust of misanthropy. They ease the pain by turning hurt into humor. . . . . . They attack maudlinism because it devalues genuine sentiment. . . . . . Nature, having failed to equip them with a servicable denial mechanism, has endowed them with astute perception and sly wit.
Curmudgeons are mockers and debunkers whose bitterness is a symptom rather than a disease. They can't compromise their standards and can't manage the suspension of disbelief necessary for feigned cheerfulness. Their awareness is a curse.
Perhaps curmudgeons have gotten a bad rap in the same way that the messenger is blamed for the message: They have the temerity to comment on the human condition without apology. They not only refuse to applaud mediocrity, they howl it down with morose glee. Their versions of the truth unsettle us, and we hold it against them, even though they soften it with humor.
- Jon Winokur, author, The Portable Curmudgeon
(a valuable little tome that encapsulates quotables from Mencken, Kaufman, and other such lights of darkness)

 

[LizzieMaine]

Not at all -- you're talking to someone who keeps a copy of the Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce on her bedside bookcase, after all. But today's snarkiness isn't like that: Bierce was funny because, to a large extent, he was a lone voice crying out in the wilderness. Today, it seems like *every* hack with a blog thinks they're Bierce, or Mencken, or Lenny Bruce, or Richard Pryor, or whatever other celebrated cynical provocateur you want to name -- and we're *drowning* in it. Somewhere in the '80s, I think, snarkiness ceased to be cutting-edge critiquing of the injustices of The System, and became just another cheesy part of the System itself.

 

[beaucaillou]

Hmmm. I think it has always been in fashion to be snarky, and probably always will be. I think 'snark' and 'wit' are relatively close cousins. Yes, there was once an Algonquin Round Table, but there were umpteen thousand people copying them on the streets and at home with far less command of poetics, timing, and vocabulary. I doubt it was much different from today. What was rude then we now consider smart or clever; time has a way of doing that. No doubt today's wisecracks, zingers, and zippy comebacks will be viewed somewhat nostalgically down the line and will be considered far less rude than what the future of wise-cracking holds.

 

[jake_fink]

It's true. Somewhere along the way satire devolved into mere snark.

It shows up all over. The IMDB boards are especially pathetic for their combination of mama's-basement tough guy snarkiness and imbecilic fandom - but that also makes them funny in a look at the nerd kind of way (Am I giving in to it myself?) Someone like Bill OReilly has me flummoxed, though. I have no idea why anyone would want to watch this overbearing creep bellowing his snark.

So, yeah, I think you're mostly right. NOW GET OFFA MY LAWN!

[Link removed. Not for content, but because the site had a guard against borrowing bandwidth. -HJ]

 

[LadyStardust]

I could hug you for writing this, honestly,haha. The answer is no, you're not the only one who got tired of it a long time ago. What really gets me is, as you hinted, the feeling that it's -necessary- to be snarky and "witty". As if you're considered a lesser person if you don't pull it off 24/7. The worst is when people fail to differentiate between snark and outright rudeness. And then they all say "Geez, what's your problem, I was just being SARCASTIC." And that just further strains conversations. I just think it's such a nuisance, and really don't understand modern culture's obsession with it. Then again, there's apparently alot I don't understand about modern culture, so maybe it's just me. [huh]

 

[Feraud]

Not at all -- you're talking to someone who keeps a copy of the Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce on her bedside bookcase, after all.

I was raised on The Devil's Dictionary.

Snark has to go. Starting with that no talent David Spade.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Lizzie, you're absolutely right. I've been observing the same thing for a long time, and I've gotten awfully depressed about it.

The dominant mode of nearly everything nowadays is irony: everything exists merely to be laughed at, put down, and generally not taken seriously. Back when SNL and David Letterman were cutting edge, this stuff was pretty funny... but now that it's *ubiquitous and assumed*, it's a sad commentary on the times. Everything from alleged "reality shows" and mean-spirited sitcoms to faux-news shows like The Colbert Report is based on the snark principle.

You know, I grew up in the 60s and early 70s, and as confused and polarized as that time was, there was idealism, and there was passion on all sides. Everybody believed in *something*. Now hardly anybody believes in anything. Everything is a potential gag, just more grist for the mill.

And, as I have observed in my own teenage kids, it's doing damage to the younger generations. They are growing up in a time when not only is nothing sacred, but everything exists solely for its punchline potential. So of course they can't be expected to believe in anything or take anything seriously: they haven't been exposed to much of that, except in the old-school movies and TV that I have shown them. In today's world, anything is good for a laugh, and anything or anyone seemingly worth believing in is bound to become a scandal sooner or later...

The thing is, I am no raging reactionary who thinks the world is going to hell: I'm a hardcore liberal/libertarian who still retains some of that 60s idealism I grew up with (and being weaned on Mad magazine, I ate up all that SNL, SCTV, Python, Airplane!, and other snarky humor that I could)... And despite being here, I really don't want to live in the past... the present is certainly demonstrably better in most ways...

But as a society, I think we seem to have skipped off the track somewhere!

 

[Paisley]

The worst example I've seen lately is previews for a new show called "Notes from the Underbelly," or something like that. It is about some couples who are having babies. Now, I don't have kids and don't want any. Nor do I care for babies or toddlers. But I don't put down people for having kids.

In one scene a man tries out a breast pump. [huh] In another, a man tries vigorously to fit something in his car, and his wife says, "You're not helping with the delivery of our baby." (Apparently, she feels he's no more respectful of her than whatever object he's shoving around.) But the worst is the disrespect one woman shows for her pregnant friends. Did she think her parents were losers for having her?

If any of this were funny, it could be a guilty pleasure. But it's not even a little humorous (at least, not to me).

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Something similar occurred in America in the 1920s.

At the start of the decade, irony and cynicism were new ... and a refreshing breather from the jingoism and fear-mongering of the previous decade. However, by the end of the '20s, the shine had worn off: cynicism had become a parody of itsef. Irony for irony's sake is empty at its heart.

What followed (along with the Depression) was an explosion of shoulder-to-the-grindstone earnestness. (A small version of this occurred in California in the early '90s. I remember it well.)

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[carebear]

I believe part of it is defensiveness and another part jealousy.

We're now in a time when there are few generally accepted norms or truths, but rather a polarized relativism, therefore there's no safety in actually believing and expressing that belief in something whole-heartedly.

Those who don't share your belief feel free to actively attack it in the most denigrating way possible (snark), especially if in an actual contest of reasoned debate and knowledge they are defenseless, while those who may agree with it but without real conviction express that belief only as very self-aware irony, as if afraid to be labeled naive or a loser if that belief turns out to have flaws or the person believed in to have feet of clay. To give themself an "out" to avoid the derision of peers.

The weak-minded are far too concerned with what other weak-minded folk think of them to have the courage of their convictions.

Those who feel they aren't weak-minded but have no inner confidence in that (too much self-esteem raising, too little actual accomplishment) resort to trying to tear down all and sundry who dare actually express and can back up their hard-earned beliefs and accomplishments. How dare some people have different opinions and be able to hold the floor in a debate about them, that person needs to be dragged back down into the sea of mediocrity and quit hurting our unsupportably high opinions of ourselves.

TR said it best...

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

We are becoming a nation of mere self-absorbed critics, hiding behind "wit", who can't abide that some raise themselves above such mediocrity.

 

[Paisley]

Manolo the Shoeblogger says that when a trend is near its end, it becomes rather extreme. Maybe we are close to seeing the end of snarkiness everywhere we look.

Nice quote from "In the Arena."

 

[Fletch]

At the start of the decade, irony and cynicism were new ... and a refreshing breather from the jingoism and fear-mongering of the previous decade. However, by the end of the '20s, the shine had worn off: cynicism had become a parody of itsef. Irony for irony's sake is empty at its heart.

What followed (along with the Depression) was an explosion of shoulder-to-the-grindstone earnestness.

Thank heaven for the Marx Brothers, Benchley, Sid Perelman, Raymond Knight and other deflaters of pomp and pretense then. Or an already unbearable time would have been even, uh, unbearable-er.

(Come to think of it, even E.B. White put out a few pieces around 1932-33 that bordered on the surrealist. Must have been hypoglycemia; there was a lot of that going around.)

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Thank heaven for the Marx Brothers, Benchley, Sid Perelman, Raymond Knight and other deflaters of pomp and pretense then. Or an already unbearable time would have been even, uh, unbearable-er.

Oh, definitely. There's a place for "The Grapes of Wrath," but not to the point where it leaves no room for slapstick, farce, sexy double-entendres, and just plain goofy fun. Nothing's worse than dead seriousness.

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[Paisley]

Nothing's worse than dead seriousness.

.

Except in comedy.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Thank heaven for the Marx Brothers, Benchley, Sid Perelman, Raymond Knight and other deflaters of pomp and pretense then. Or an already unbearable time would have been even, uh, unbearable-er.

(Come to think of it, even E.B. White put out a few pieces around 1932-33 that bordered on the surrealist. Must have been hypoglycemia; there was a lot of that going around.)

That's exacty the difference, though, between '30s satire and modern snark: at heart, the wits named above were bringing the overbearing down to earth while at the same time commenting on basic human foibles. But they were never hateful, cruel, or vicious in the way that modern snarks can be.

It's that undercurrent of genuine unwarranted cruelty in so much of modern "humor" that really seems to characterize modern snark: as witness the recent incident involving a certain soon-to-be-former morning radio personality. I really don't think they're parallels at all -- I suspect even Groucho himself would be appalled at some of what passes for comedy nowadays, and his sympathy would be directed toward the targets of the cracks rather than the ones doing the cracking.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

But they were never hateful, cruel, or vicious in the way that modern snarks can be.

With one exception, IMO: on film, Groucho Marx was very, very hard on Marguerite Dumont. Really went beyond the limit, to the point of cruelty.

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[LizzieMaine]

With one exception, IMO: on film, Groucho Marx was very, very hard on Marguerite Dumont. Really went beyond the limit, to the point of cruelty.

.

I dunno -- I tend to see that more as being hard on what she represents in the films, namely the blowhard upper classes. Note that you never saw La Dumont cast in the role of a harried working-class housewife or scrubwoman taking abuse from Groucho.

 

[Chanfan]

I think it may be hard to judge our own time, vs. previous eras. By the time we are looking back on this time period, perhaps much of the "lesser" snarkyness will have faded from memory, and only the classic pieces - Marx Brothers, etc. - will remain. Then those in a future decade will lament their own attitudes, and see only the good bits of ours, and long for our bygone better era.

“‘For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?’” asks Mr. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice…

 

[Diamondback]

Mr. Carberry, very profound! You are a worthy opponent, sir...

Miss Lizzie, is it considered "snark" if you have the sharp wiseacre tongue, but express it articulately and with intellect, rather than four-letter crudities?