Snark: Jeremy Clarkson

If we form an emotional attachment to every single thing that comes into our lives, pretty soon the whole country will become clogged up with stuff that doesn’t work any more.

Woolworths was a classic case in point. When it went out of business, everyone ran around saying it should be saved because it was “traditional”. No it wasn’t. It was a terrible shop, selling awful things that even ghastly people didn’t want to buy. Woolworths was useful only for sheltering from a second world war bombing raid.

Snark – noun

Also snarky (adj.) and snarkily (adv.)

But just what is snark?

We all think we recognize snark when we see it – it’s a tone of teasing, snide, undermining abuse, nasty and knowing, that’s spreading through the media. Its practitioners think it’s funny, but it isn’t big and it certainly isn’t clever. So where did it all go wrong? What happened to the black comedy, the clever irony and the pinpoint satire we once admired and how did they turn into a charmless and witless way of speaking?

Inspired by Lewis Carroll, the New Yorker critic and bestselling author David Denby takes on the snarkers. In this sharp and witty polemic, he identifies the nine principles of snark and traces its history from its invention as personal insult in the drinking clubs of ancient Athens, through such diverse proponents as Alexander Pope, Private Eye and Tom Wolfe to its arrival in the age of the Internet, where it has become the sole purpose and style of many media, political and celebrity Web sites.

By highlighting what has gone wrong in America, Denby gives us a manifesto for a snark-free way of communicating in the future.

Jeremy Clarkson on the demise of Woolworths

Who's the snarkiest?

Hunting the Snark

Labels

Snark – noun

Jeremy Clarkson on the demise of Woolworths

Who's the snarkiest?

Subscribe to Snark feeds

Hunting the Snark

Labels

Snark – noun