I love snark and was first exposed to snark - and this observation obviates all the Trollope, Dickens, and Thackeray I read previously - was "Spy" magazine, the launching pad for, among other, E. Graydon Carter now at "Vanity Fair". Seemingly, he now subscribes to what he once snarked.
To truly snark is to hate and seek to undermine, to condescend to your target. To snark is to pass judgement and to be smug and snug in the seat from which judgement is passed. Perhaps Mr. Carter did not master snark, and was merely a poseur on his way up the glossy rag publishing chain. That sentence just now demonstrated snark on two fronts: (1) Mr. Carter's callowness; and (2) the hierarchy of print media. The immediately preceding sentence was not devoid of snark either, as it used the word "callowness".
I think the format of blogs helps to foster snark. This gives me some concern. A lot of concern. Because while I like to think of myself, and quite frankly probably need to think of myself, as a kind person, my tendency is totally towards snark. If I am writing alone and posting my thoughts with some degree of anonymity, I fear my niceness factor - or fiction; you choose. I refuse - will be mitigated if not quashed by snark.
I'm signing up.
I cannot size the insert!! Arghhh!
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