Why snark works

http://agrammar.tumblr.com/post/211360936/why-snark-works

by req2 • 17 years ago

18 14 17 years ago

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jimfl2• 17 years ago

All serious comments in this thread will be downvoted.

jimfl2• 17 years ago

But seriously (If I may spend a little accumulated karma), I argue though humor alot (ALOT), and I sometimes have people ask me "how come you're never serious?" to which I reply, I'm deadly serious. If I didn't care, I'd just be quiet. Keying on the irony of a situation is often the quickest way to get everyone in the same frame for problem solving.

Sthorpe4• 17 years ago

When i'm new to a group, I like creating my own snark comments instead of acting like I get theirs. Then I can hijack the assumptions others have and make them my own.

Besides if you don't use direct references you have to rely on assumptions. Which makes us all speak babble.

papersmith• 17 years ago

I consider it more of a guilty pleasure.

dkarl• 17 years ago

Flippancy works best for people who already agree with you in principle.

And this is why snark "works" -- people only care about socializing, not learning or persuading. Snark "works" by reinforcing commonality, stigmatizing difference, and turning disagreement into rivalry. Snark "works" if you're interested in the distinction between "people like me" and "people unlike me" rather than the distinction between your ideas and someone else's ideas. It doesn't work at all if you want to communicate constructively with people who have fundamentally different or alien ideas.

EDIT: I guess I didn't say anything very different from him, but I thought he glossed over the negative aspects pretty quickly. He characterizes snark as an ugly way of bullying people close to you, he says it is "quite possibly a really bad thing and a really bad habit," but he's clearly looking forward to using it. Creepy.

lionhearted2• 17 years ago

I'm with you. Take this part, saying that thoughtful discussion is potentially dull and time-wasting:

> Flippancy is more fun. The work of reaching out and explaining things is potentially dull and time-wasting; it’s just plain funnier and more exciting and more gratifying to be on the inside of shared assumptions.

He has it completely backwards - standard internet sarcasm is incredibly boring and repetitive. It's sad when a good site gets popular and the same cliched rudeness and snark replaces and pushes out the good and thoughtful discussion.

Sthorpe4• 17 years ago

Its not only sad online but offline to. I wonder what causes people to talk/write in a snark fashion? What is the main motivator. To be cool? Get noticed? I guess youtube comments are the perfect example.

Maybe only thoughtful discussions can be had when a group is limited to a certain size and status is defined by the most original discussions. Not by the most accepted.

teeja• 17 years ago

Yep, ad hominem is alive and well. The favorite tactic of the uninformed, the 'diverters' and haters.

10ren2• 17 years ago

"They convince socially, not rhetorically." is an interesting take on the well-known idea of peer-group pressure. Humans have a need to belong, and we'll do it using whatever means are available. It's not just reddit memes, but also even the kind of language scientists use (so their "dominant paradigms" are partly social paradigms). When you laugh at a clever xkcd comic, it's partly a social laugh.

I hadn't thought of it in terms of convincing people - of having arguments and assumptions accepted, often without any opposition, because the conscious barriers are circumvented. Advertising uses this (especially sports-star endorsement). It's not just a sense of "getting it" and belonging/being accepted - it's also values and beliefs being changed.

Incidentally, peer pressure was experimentally confirmed in the famous http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments

EDIT the problem with sacrificing objectivity for a sense of belonging is that you don't see things quite as they are, so you have less ability to make a difference. You can't hack "magic" (there's my in-group reference). But in any group, people will try to conform unconsciously - the stubbornness of Establishment scientists (putatively truth-seekers) is a well-known trope; even here, HackerNews has some cult-like qualities (the "pg cult").

The problem of going the other way is that you sacrifice a sense of belonging for the sake of objectivity - an inhumanly cold choice. And you can't do it fully, anyway.

Sthorpe4• 17 years ago

"the problem with sacrificing objectivity for a sense of belonging is that you don't see things quite as they are, so you have less ability to make a difference."

How do we agree as a group and yet continue to think independently? We have to agree on some things...right?

10ren2• 17 years ago

I think you're getting at having a common language, terminology, notation, in order to be able to communicate.

These also carry assumptions and biases within them. Often, breakthroughs come along with new notation or terminology - a new conceptual way to reason and talk about the subject - that the existing language "taught away" from.

But communication is also important for seeing more, and having more objectivity, by getting new points of view. Just being aware of the subjectivity is probably the best we can do in practice.

stcredzero• 17 years ago

One should take it as a good sign if people are criticizing them with only snarky remarks. Especially if the snark is uninformed or misinformed!

Why snark works

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