Snark

[veronica_rich]

There's a great program on NPR right now about snark - a New York film critic discussing how it's weakened and broken down national civil discourse, and how real humor ought to be reinstituted along with actual civility.

To me, snark is a byproduct of the breakdown of trust in political, business, and personal relationships, and a self-defensive response to mean-spirited nonpartisan (not just political; the term is not limited to public office) rhetoric. I don't think it came first in the breakdown of discourse ... but I do think it has contributed to further breakdown, greatly. One example is fandom; I started out just a fan enjoying things. I got involved in debate, which started gamely and graciously enough among a certain number of people. Other people joined in, threw out their opinions and either refused to listen to ours or put them down dismissively, and put off a LOT of us fans after a while of this. Some of us turned mean and snarky in our turn, probably putting off new people who hadn't offended anybody. But I see this as a very small (and less important, obviously) microcosm of political and academic everyday discourse. Sound bites rule the day; we can't be bothered to listen to longer proposals - witness the complete disinterest in John Kerry's explanations of his health care and economic ideas in 2004 (which now look pretty damn good). People simply could NOT be bothered to pay attention. I'm not trying to make this political - I'm just grabbing something I know to be true from the air, you understand.

I blame the Internet, much as I love it. Anonymonity and shorthand typing leads to shorthand thinking, in my opinion. Do you guys remember when you could compose business e-mails and convey humor or gentle sarcasm without throwing in a LOL or an ASCII smiley face?

When the show is online later, I'll snag the audio link and post it here.

Comments

[gobsmacked.livejournal.com]

Word about the short-hand typing and especially the anonymity.
As we have reason to know, anonymity has allowed people to create whole alternate worlds of reality and suck others in, as well as allowing a lot of nasty business to be untraceable. (As example: Back in the early days of email, some colleagues of mine got abusive emails from their students. While similar incidents via phone were easily solved, no one had any idea of where to begin to find the culprits. One colleague had to explain the idea of an isp address to someone at the "info commons" of her university).

Thank the gods LOL hasn't made it to academic emails. However, I'm a bit kinder to the smiley face. Some people I know (professors, curators, etc) have actually taken to adding the :-) to emails to colleagues to show that they are really that upset about a problem.
Having been the author of numerous business emails, I can easily understand that even if one tries to convey humour or whimsey in an email through words, it can still go awry due to predisposition of the reader or simply reading for speed and not full comprehension.
Perhaps like your example of the voters and Kerry's ideas.

[gobsmacked.livejournal.com]

Also: snark is as old as the hills. One of my colleagues showed me a 3000-year pornographic graffito featuring an ancient Egyptian pharaoh. She also showed me some pretty graphic early 19th century political cartoons (e.g. the Prince Regent in bed with his mistress reading a list of political favours tacked up on the headboard)

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

Well, there's snark, satire, irony, humor, and outright attacks. To be fair to this critic guy, we've never had the Internet before, and I can't fathom if we've ever had a similar kind of communication as a species that lent itself to instant, anonymous, snap-judgment-type of responding. There's the telephone - and sure, there's always been prank callers and abusing telemarketers/salespeople/annoying customers with it - but I'm not sure it's quite the same *kind* of isolation and "freedom" as this form. Does that sound right?

[metalkatt.livejournal.com]

but I'm not sure it's quite the same *kind* of isolation and "freedom" as this form. Does that sound right?

I think that's absolutely correct. Even on the phone, when you're not seeing someone, you're still going to hear them. You're still going to know their voice... and you both are going to *hear* each others' tones, even if you don't do any active listening to the words. With words on a screen, you don't get tones, even if you use asterisks, caps, bolds, or italics. Everyone's inner reading demon sounds different.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

And with the phone, there's *some* accountability. You generally know a name even if you know nothing else. Somebody has a database for tracking your bad behavior, or vice versa! When I got mad at the cable people a couple of years ago, it was only after I first tried to be reasonable and was not getting a reasonable response. I did raise my voice a bit, I may have invoked "damn" or "hell," but I didn't name-call or tell them they were a horrible phone operator - I ranted about the company and the response protocol. BUT I WAS WILLING TO PUT MY NAME ON IT. I think that's the difference, too.

[metalkatt.livejournal.com]

of course. There's so much repercussion for every little thing that once people lose accountability, they go apeshit.

[gobsmacked.livejournal.com]

that lent itself to instant, anonymous, snap-judgment-type of responding
yes, it's the speed of response along with isolation and sometimes freedom from consequence that's dangerous.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

I engage in smiley-facing and LOLing only with people I know are similarly disposed to use them, in business. (Fortunately, in my business that's pretty forgivable. If I were a stockbroker or something, I would not get to do that. Even in what I do there are times I don't get to use it.)

ISP-tracing has made life a little easier, but I've never done it unless I felt my life or job was really in jeopardy (there was one incident many years ago where a couple of crazy fans - long before POTC - mixed me up with someone else they'd met, and they went around telling stories about me that weren't ME at all. When I kept telling them to knock it off, they began threatening my identity and job. I put that one down pretty quick; I won't say how, just that my line of work did come in handy). I don't mind people expressing anonymous opinions, so long as it doesn't branch into threatening like that. But it would be nice if they stay polite.

[gobsmacked.livejournal.com]

I don't mind people expressing anonymous opinions, so long as it doesn't branch into threatening like that
I can imagine how scary and humiliating and downright infuriating such threats could be. I'm glad you got them.
One of the followers of the above-mentioned reality spinners threatened someone who mocked their group with being fist-raped and another made a fairly unequivocal death threat against the same person. ISP-tracing showed the death threat came from someone in Scandinavia, but what are the guarantees that someone is going to stay there?

[pir8fancier.livejournal.com]

You know, I think this guy is creating a name for something that has existed forever. It's called politics and the grab for power. I think Kerry is a great example because he didn't seize the moment when the Bush administration started with the Swift Boat nonsense. Obama learned from Kerry's mistakes and jumped on IMMEDIATELY any slam the GOP tried to make stick. And for the most part it didn't. But that doesn't make it new and novel. It just means that Kerry was naive.

Example. In the formative years of this country, there wasn't a Vice President. The Vice President was the person who didn't generate enough votes to be president. Seems like a stupid system and you can see why it was changed. When Burr was running for President against Jefferson you would not BELIEVE what newspaper said about him. Insinuated he was gay for starters.

Really, to me it's all about controlling the message and it has nothing to do with the Internet. If the message is in bytes or scandal sheets of the 19th century, it's still about language to manipulate others and grab power.