Snark Attack

Internet snark has become a major annoyance. I often long for the days when only nerds were on the internet. If you haven’t heard it before, snark is the term used for sarcastic, asshole responses in the comments at the bottom of every story and in every thread you are interested in following.

Snark, when done right, is a quick bit of ignorance or obviousness to lighten up the discussion. It’s the typed version of a quick dumb joke. It is often targeted at a poster who is ranting, repeating, or working with false assumptions. Good snark is the elephant in the room.

When the nerds had the internet all to themselves snark was often technical and sometimes obscure, and the effect was often endearing because it represented a frustrated nerd cracking wise. Nowadays with every member of the general public posting daily, their little Facebook faces crowding up the entire web, snark has become the standard language of the internet, and the way it is practiced these days is downright unfunny if not horrible in it’s completeness.

Seemingly every discussion on the internet (okay about 75% in my experience) has someone posting garbage insults, opinions, and false information. It’s like the ignorance of mankind on full display. We are treated to people who can type but not spell, people who must not have made it through 6th grade grammar, people who’s hatred drives them to post horrible things under their own name, often times with a picture of them and their unfortunate offspring. Making fun of people’s appearance is something the nerds never bothered with, that was against the rules.

I shudder to think how much snark has affected people’s psyche. The early internet featured nerds having nerdy discussions, so snarky comments just added to your nerdy battles. People weren’t discussing nearly as much emotional content back then.

The fact that the modern internet includes insulting snarks in the comment section of stories about death, disease, and tragedies makes it a pretty horrible place. So much ignorance and insensitivity being posted to this amazing resource known collectively as the internet. Someone posts something nice, someone else posts that they have bad teeth and seeing their teeth was so horrible that it has altered their worldview. Original poster has to deal with that.

Are you guilty? If you log into a single service (like facebook) and cruise around the web posting short, opinionated slams on people or the subject at hand, you are probably snarking. If your posts aren’t funny and could hurt people’s feelings you should know you are pooping in the hallway and you need to get some manners.

Stop insulting people online and move it offline. Have fun sitting at the bar telling people their flaws to their faces. The cute baby in your photo won’t help then.