Snark: A Polemic in Seven Fits

by David Denby

What is snark? You recognize it when you see it -- a tone of teasing, snide, undermining abuse, nasty and knowing, that is spreading like pinkeye through the media and threatening to take over how Americans converse with each other and what they can count on as true. Snark attempts to steal someone's mojo, erase her cool, annihilate her effectiveness. In this sharp and witty polemic, New Yorker critic and bestselling author David Denby takes on the snarkers, naming the nine principles of snark -- the standard techniques its practitioners use to poison their arrows. Snarkers like to think they are deploying wit, but mostly they are exposing the seethe and snarl of an unhappy country, releasing bad feeling but little laughter. In this highly entertaining essay, Denby traces the history of snark through the ages, starting with its invention as personal insult in the drinking clubs of ancient Athens, tracking its development all the way to the age of the Internet, where it has become the sole purpose and style of many media, political, and celebrity Web sites. Snark releases the anguish of the dispossessed, envious, and frightened; it flows when a dying class of the powerful struggles to keep the barbarians outside the gates, or, alternately, when those outsiders want to take over the halls of the powerful and expel the office-holders. Snark was behind the London-based magazine Private Eye, launched amid the dying embers of the British empire in 1961; it was also central to the career-hungry, New York-based magazine Spy. It has flourished over the years in the works of everyone from the startling Roman poet Juvenal to Alexander Pope to Tom Wolfe to a million commenters snarling at other people behind handles. Thanks to the grand dame of snark, it has a prominent place twice a week on the opinion page of the New York Times . Denby has fun snarking the snarkers, expelling the bums and promoting the true wits, but he is also making a serious the Internet has put snark on steroids. In politics, snark means the lowest, most insinuating and insulting side can win. For the young, a savage piece of gossip could ruin a reputation and possibly a future career. And for all of us, snark just sucks the humor out of life. Denby defends the right of any of us to be cruel, but shows us how the real pros pull it off. Snark, he says, is for the amateurs.

Genres: Nonfiction, Language, Cultural, Humor, Sociology, Criticism, Audiobook

144 pages, Hardcover

First published January 13, 2009

About the author

David Denby is an American journalist, best known as a film critic for The New Yorker magazine. Denby grew up in New York City. He received a B.A. from Columbia University in 1965, and a master's degree from its journalism school in 1966.

Reviews

[Ian "Marvin" Graye · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Drydactic Affair

Ultimately, I found this book about "snide and ... smart ass remarks" (the UrDic of Dictionaries) unsatisfying, even though there was a lot of useful material in it.

There is way too much repetition and lack of direction to make the book a truly successful piece of analysis.

In a way, it could or should have been capped at magazine article or essay length.

It’s almost as if the real value of the book as a reading experience was not so much the serious points that Denby makes, but the examples of snark that he sprinkles liberally (or conservatively) throughout its length.

It seems to rely on us getting a vicarious or voyeuristic pleasure out of reading something we wouldn’t otherwise condone. Either that, or the reaction, "I wish I’d said that!"

Certainly, without the snark, it would have been a pretty dry and didactic ("drydactic"?) affair.

Not Really a Definitive Article

From the outset, Denby seems to be vaguely embarrassed that he is writing about this topic. He seems to be concerned that he will be seen as railing (ineffectually, which might concern him more) against modernity (or perhaps the irony of post-modernity).

Unfortunately, this ambivalence affects his ability to define terms adequately.

While he purports to define "snark", he really does no more than describe it, both in terms of what it is and what it is not.

This makes it very hard to determine whether he would or we should regard any particular comment as snarky.

What is Snark (or "Low Snark")

Superficially, he is concerned about abuse in a public forum.

Here is a list of adjectives or descriptors he uses to describe it:

Nasty, abusive, personal, low, teasing, rug-pulling, finger-pointing, snide, obvious, condescending, knowing, bilious, snarling, resentful, gloating, jeering, hateful, taunting, contemptuous, derisive, resentful, parasitic, referential, insinuating, lazy, parasitic, infantile, trivial, boring.

What isn't Snark

These words paint a very negative picture. However, he is at pains to point out that he is not advocating gentleness, kindness or toothlessness in criticism or public debate.

He approves ordinary sarcasm, invective, aggressive wit, incisive criticism ("essential to a healthy democracy), savage insult (especially directed at the powerful), malice in general ("as central to human nature as kindness"), trash talk and irony ("the most powerful of all satiric weapons").

He describes irony, wit, satire, parody, spoof, lampoon and burlesque as "all heaven-sent forms":

"Satire is always critical, directly or indirectly, of manners, vices, attitudes, persons, social types, or conditions."

How to Differentiate

You have to wonder what is left when you take into account all of these exemptions.

Perhaps we have to resort to the motive or psychology of the critic to determine which is snark?

Denby describes snark as "an expression of the alienated, the ambitious, the dispossessed,...the outsider."

He thinks of its exponents as philistines who "will never honor the artistically and intellectually ambitious" (how often do you see authors or prose described as "pretentious" or "masturbatory"?):

"Scratch a writer of snark, and you will find a media-age conformist and an aesthetic nonentity… indifferent to originality or to quality."

Perceived success or profile makes an artist a target of the snark:

"There was no success that couldn’t be hollowed out by the revelation of some deep-seated inadequacy."

While Denby values irony, he sees it as a contributor to modern skepticism. He quotes Jedediah Purdy (not uncritically):

"Irony is powered by a suspicion that everything is derivative. It generates a way of passing judgement – or placing bets – on what kinds of hopes the world will support.

"Jerry Seinfeld’s stance resists disappointment or failure by refusing to identify strongly with any project, relationship, or aspiration…

"There is a kind of security here, but it is the negative security of perpetual suspicion."

From Negation to Elation

Denby quotes the owner of Gawker Media:

"[We’re] not interested in think pieces unless they’re rants."

Thought and critical acumen is not valued in its own right.

More importantly, adverting to an article by critic and novelist Heidi Julavits in which she criticized the critic James Wood, he says:

"Elation, of course, is precisely the emotion – engaged, passionate, jubilant – that is anathema to writers of snark.

"Their jaded negativity attacks any kind of aspirational tone that doesn’t conform to a commercialized notion of hip.

"Even when something original and great comes along, snarking writers cannot turn off their attitude for a minute and celebrate.

"In the end, they wind up serving as thugs of the media conglomerates, breaking the arms of anything out-of-date or unsalable or truly idiosyncratic."

I haven’t sought to analyse James Wood’s criticism, but the "thug" comment particularly applies to B. R. Myers and his quest for ridiculous sentences in Post-Modern American fiction.

Snarks never seem to assert the joy of any text, except perhaps their own and occasionally that of their audience of acolytes whose witness is necessary to the impact or pleasure of the snarkery.

Behind snark is the attitude "You suck, I don’t" or "I’m OK, you’re not".

"There, but for Grace, Go I"

This isn’t to suggest that we must all agree or conform to the one standard of literary or artistic taste.

It’s more about how we express our distaste.

Ultimately, Denby is advocating "imagination, freshness, fantasy, verbal invention and adroitness" in criticism, journalism and public forums:

"I am not calling for a Puritanism of language, but, on the contrary, for a paganism of language in which every sensuous apprehension of the surfaces of life is filtered through a developed sense of how the surfaces and the interiors fit together, and what matters and what doesn’t."

He is seeking what he calls "judgement and grace" (which he assumkes we understand, and doesn't define).

"Charm It with Smiles and Soap"

Denby sees judgement and grace as part of the solution to the lack of civility on the web where –

"If someone snarks me on the Web, I will snark back."

Judgement, grace, civility. They might sound like very old-fashioned ideas, but if they still mean anything off-line, then you have to ask why they shouldn't also mean something on-line.

Now all we have to do is work out what they mean and just do it!


"Criticism is a performance that judges someone else’s performance."

Clive James


"If your Snark be a Snark, that is right:
Fetch it home by all means — you may serve it with greens,
And it’s handy for striking a light.
You may seek it with thimbles—and seek it with care;
You may hunt it with forks and hope;
You may threaten its life with a railway-share;
You may charm it with smiles and soap..."

Lewis Carroll - "The Hunting of the Snark"

[Suman · Rating 1 out of 5]

Intellectually lazy...

You've had this situation. There's six hours to go before a 10 page paper is due, and you haven't begun writing yet. You have this dynamite thesis and things seem to be really coming together in your head, but once you start putting pen to paper you find out the following: a) your world-shattering idea is not very concrete, b) you only have a couple pieces of good evidence, c) a number of your arguments stem from your own prejudices rather than fact, and d) oh shit, you still have 9.5 pages to go.

This is how I felt when reading Snark. I'm really disappointed, because I know that there is something going wrong in the discourse on public message boards, newspapers, politics, etc. and I was very much hoping that Denby could crystalize these vague feelings. Unfortunately, this book completely failed in this and other regards.

The problems start with trying to find a simple definition of snark. There isn't one. Denby gives us examples of what snark is and isn't, but these examples at best don't really serve to delineate between snark and otherwise, and at worst just serve to confuse. For example, Denby identifies South Park as a non-snark television show, but South Park combines social commentary with "lowbrow"* snark. So, what do you mean, Denby?

The history section is a complete throwaway (it is clear from his reading of Juvenal that he doesn't have a strong grasp of the text... I get the feeling that he likes that type of snark because it's old) and much of the historical context he tries to provide is just empty words on a page. The Anatomy of Style chapter would be better if he replaced his random new-media rants with fact (or even whitespace), and the other three chapters would just seem better if he included details that made me think he had a good grasp on the subject.

There are six pages (78-83) that are actually pretty good about the role of snark in the movie industry. This shouldn't be terribly surprising, as Denby is a movie reviewer for the New Yorker, and he has a good grasp on the subject material. He describes how snarky celeb websites, such as Perez Hilton, etc., use snark to damage the Hollywood star ecosystem and how they actually do reduce the level of public discourse. This material, however, should be in a blog post and not in a published book.

What seems to have happened (and this is just a random hypothesis), is that Denby saw snark in Perez Hilton, etc., thought he understood how it worked, and tried to create a book out of it. Unfortunately, he didn't, and the result is an intellectually lazy book that tells us more about Denby's own prejudices (he really does hate internet media and is much more sympathetic to its traditional counterpart) than about the role of snark in today's society.

In short, not recommended.

*"lowbrow" is according to Denby's "definition", which as far as I can tell, means something that's not "intellectual" (also "defined" by Denby).

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

So here I was, reading, enjoying myself and engaged but feeling as though Denby's cultural experience was so disparate from my own that (aside from Juvenal and Jon Stewart) I was unlikely to glean much more... then it happened! A thing of beauty! An entire chapter devoted to Maureen Dowd!

That cruel and idealistically hollow writer finally has drawn the barbs of someone as cunning as herself! So many mornings I have quaked with impotent rage over the op-ed columns, defenseless against her careless cruelty as she rent the fabric of our democracy with her sharp claws and teeth. I once even wrote to the editor to ask that she be stopped, though I knew it would do no good. So thank you, David, thank you. Even if we cannot change her or free the world from her dreaded opinions, at least I know that someone out there understands.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

This very brief book (125pp.) contains about 20-25 worthwhile pages. The rest, especially the supposed historical background, is pure filler. If you want to understand snark and its prevalence read the following blogs: Dead Spin, Wonkette, Perez Hilton, and With Leather. What differentiates snark from vitriolic satire and/or cultural criticism is that snark is harsh criticism for its own sake. There is no greater vision behind snark, it is all mocking and ridiculing all the time. Snark is a vicious style which is the means and ends at the same time, whereas satire is the means to greater ends.

I do agree with Denby's overall assessment of snark (which is neatly summarized in the book's subtitle): it's mean, it's personal, and it's ruining our conversation.

There, now you don't have to read the book.

[Deborah Markus · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not enquire wisely concerning this.”

That’s a quote from Ecclesiastes. That means people have been going on and on about the good old days for thousands of years. They’ve been doing it for so long that God had to tell them to cut it out, already. (It didn’t work, but I appreciate Him trying.)

Snark is a decent book, but in my eyes it’s marred by frequent laments about how much nicer people used to be. Laments written by a solidly middle class American white man of a certain age. Hmm.

Also – okay, let me preface this complaint by pointing out that because I’m weird, I grew up reading Lewis Carroll’s poem The Hunting of the Snark. We had an illustrated copy around, and as a kid I read it incessantly. I have whole stretches of it memorized, and let me tell you, that’s exactly the kind of thing that will get you not invited to the really good birthday parties.

I’m a fan, is what I’m saying. So when I also say that David Denby’s references to this strange poem are strained and disruptive, he’d best listen. I’m his potential fan base, and he’s alienating me.

This book sets out to explain why snark is dangerous and destructive. To do that, Denby has to define what snark is.

“Snark,” he explains early on, “is a teasing, rug-pulling form of insult that attempts to steal someone’s mojo, erase her cool, annihilate her effectiveness, and it appeals to a knowing audience that shares the contempt of the snarker and therefore understands whatever references he makes.”

Fair enough, and nicely put. Snark also, Denby says, has a certain “whatever” quality. It “attacks without reason,” because the snarker doesn’t care about anything and has no larger point to make. Snarking is kneejerk sneering.

Good point. Definitely something to think about.

But that doesn’t take a whole book to say. And this is a short book that still feels longer than it needs to be, because this should have been an essay. I found myself growing restless long before the end, and this book is only 128 pages including acknowledgements and a reference list.

Also, Denby includes a paragraph of his own New Yorker writing that he was surprised to hear accused of snarkiness, and it’s the snarkiest damn thing you ever read. It’s too long to include here, but here’s a bit of it:

“Ben Stiller’s face seems constructed by someone playing with the separate eyes, noses, and mouths of a children’s mix-and-match book. There’s nothing wrong with the features, but they don’t quite go together.”

He goes on some more about Stiller’s physical features. On and on and on. He admits that this passage might be “nasty. But is it snark? I leave it to the reader to decide.”

Well, Denby defines snark as “hazing on a page.” So far, so snarky. There’s the abovementioned “whatever principle” – snarkers “attack without reason.” What’s the reason behind going on and on about how someone looks? Denby is a movie reviewer for a magazine that prides itself on offering intellectual fare to educated readers. I quoted less than half of what he had to say about Stiller’s face. I think that adds up to “guilty as charged.” And since the Stiller paragraph was quoted early on, it colored the rest of the book for me.

So: get this book from the library. Read the first and fifth chapters. Also the one about Maureen Dowd.

If you’re a control freak, read the rest of it. (Then again, if you’re a control freak, there’s no way you were able to read the fifth chapter without reading the four preceding it, so never mind.) If you’re a more relaxed sort, trust me – you’ve now read all the good parts.

[Astraia · Rating 1 out of 5]

Author David Denby defines "snark" as "things he does not like." He states in his "essay" that snark is biting comments that are directed at an individual that have no civic purpose. But really, he just (goes on and on) telling us that Stephen Colbert is a genius and not snarky (even if he directs comments at individuals) because he is funny and ironic in the author's opinion. He finds a good number of snarky people (such as people who respond on internet blogs) who are against the Democratic party or particpants. Other snarky people include mean people he disagrees with. People who are not snarky: mean people he agrees with! I found this book in the bargain bin- and now I know why (aren't I snarky.)

[residentoddball · Rating 4 out of 5]

Snark is a tantalizing read for those who like to perceive and dissect the incredibly subtle attributes of communication, especially in the light of modern technology.

To his credit (and in contrast to what other reviews have said), Denby masterfully etches out the acute definition of snark. An expression tactic that blends language with demeanor, snark holds its own in a fascinating yet very complex gray area of communication, as the author points out. Denby successfully eliminates nearly all confusion, continually setting snark apart from other types of delivery (like satire, insults, critique, and more) so that the reader never forgets what is and is not snark. He offers an outline of snark's unique characteristics, with plenty of examples throughout history and present-day to support each of his arguments.

Snark was a very good read overall, although I was quite disappointed in the last two chapters. The entire chapter Denby devotes to Maureen Dowd is not the grand slam out of the park like his other chapters. The point that he tries to make (I assume) of Dowd being the ultimate snark-er is scattered and loosely tied together. Denby presents many examples of her work, but doesn't use them to drive home the essence of his definition like he does in the rest of the book.

And while it was nice to read a chapter on what is NOT snark for further emphasis, I was disappointed that that is where the book stopped. I felt like I was left wanting more, or at the very least wanting a closing argument to digest all of the fine idiosyncrasies that had just been laid before me.

Regardless, I completely enjoyed Snark and will never read or write online quite the same way again.

[Amy Wilder]

Is it weird that I want to read the book about snark by a guy I thought I liked for being snarky? I mean, maybe he isn't exactly snarky - if I know what he means, I think he means snark as in humorous in a snide way that pokes fun and implies a critique but doesn't really reveal the agenda or anything about the snarker except that they are cooler than the thing they are snarking. David Denby DOES always have a POV and an argument behind his critique. But - the fun of it is how he rips a piece of work that someone poured their heart into to shreds with clever turns of phrase - and that is similar to snark, if still distinguishable from it.

So...I guess you would say - I can snark Pat Robertson all too easily, but am I snarking him because he is square and out of touch with the world or because I stand in staunch opposition to his politics? Unless you know me already, you don't really get an argument from snark, you get attitude.

I find snarkiness thrilling for that reason, I think - it's free of consequences, like internet porn - but also like internet porn - it's only fun in small doses. Then it starts to seem shallow, nasty, or uninventive.

I think snark thrives on Facebook (and I perpetrate it there, or I imagine that I do, maybe I'm too square to pull it off) because it's safe. 300 of your closest friends may know your politics precisely or not at all, but they can snicker at your snarky comment and you have risked nothing.

Facebook allows diligent kids and adults to follow trend-leaders closely, disguising themselves as trendsetters, and snark lets them push back the riff-raff who are hopeless uncool. But what happens when snark grows up?

Snark is a close cousin to sarcasm, which my dad likes to remind me, means "tearing of the flesh".

[Ryan Holiday · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ahh, I had such high hopes for this and I think the author did too. Unfortunately, I don't think he quite understood the subject on which he was writing. Snark is a very real and very important trend in American culture but anyone that thinks Bill O'Reilly is snarky (he's not, he's an jerk. big difference) is completely clueless about where it's going. It almost boggles the mind that someone could assert the right is leading the snark charge. The fact of the matter is that they aren't culturally relevant or smart enough to be responsible.

The subject is something that you should have at least a vague knowledge or sense of because one day it will blindside you or your company. A nice example is to monitor the writing of any Gawker writer - see how often one day's post will contradict the one that came before it. That's because they write considering only the immediate post at hand (partly because of the economics of it) and it prevents them from developing a coherent editorial voice. Since everything has to be controversial or critical, what they write ultimately is never about what they have to say but the way in which they have to say it. It's more sad than anything else.

Still, the book is nowhere near as bad as some of the (snarky) reviewers are trying to make it sound. Rather, the author got in over his head and the work suffers for it.

[David Macpherson · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really hated this book more than I thought I could. For the first three fourths of the book, it was a straight forward book, where Denby goes through the history of what he defined as snark, some of it was interesting. I was curious with some of the things he defined as snark and things he defined as sarcasm, but then near then, I understood what it was all about. All of this was his defining snark as a terrible thing so that he can show how horrible Maureen Down, ofthe New York TImes, is. He created his own definition to prove that Dowd is the worst practitioner of it, but he made the definition so of course she will fit it to a T. I felt that the whole purpose of the book was to attack her, that the rest was just preamble so he can have at her and prove that she deserved it. It felt like a personal attack, like they had a history together and this was his public demonstration of a personal distaste. I feel hoodwinked, I planned to reada book about the destruction of satire and discourse, not an attack from one New York based columnist to another. If the book, was titled, Maureen Dowd is a Useless Son of a Bitch, I would have respected it better. Horrible book, it has gotten to the point where I can't read his reviews in the New Yorker, because I feel I can't trust him as a writer. He is worse than snarky, just false

[Davie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Finished for now, although technically I did not read all the pages (maybe should have a separate list for these ones).

Snark as a word and a book title have such potential -- why oh why did you have to disappoint me so? Maybe if Denby had titled the book, "random things in the world that make me grumpy that I think are somehow deeply interrelated even though they are probably not," I wouldn't have had such high expectations and might have been able to get past the first essay, in which snark is just a bit too conveniently defined. As in, snark is everything that happens to piss Denby off -- while everything Denby does that pisses off other people, even though it might seem very like snark, somehow escapes the definition because he meant well while he was writing it. Which would require some pretty skillful mind-reading both of himself and of others. Which Denby could not convince me he was capable of. Which in turn, pissed me off.

But one star for the effort. There is a lot to say about what ways conversations can be made more or less inclusive, civil, and useful. Just not in this book (or at least not in the part I got through).

[Chrissa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Perhaps my reading of this suffered because I read it at the same time as Deborah Tannen's "The Argument Culture." Mr. Denby, in making his argument that we are suffering from an influx of snark as an accepted style of interaction to the devaluation of the opinions and arguments made this way, seemed underline the misogynist tendencies he uncovered therein by continually associating snark with the female voice.

"Snark," for Mr. Denby, is epitomized by teenage girls insulting absent members of their own clique. His examples are frequently women writers, often writing for blogs, and after a time I felt that he was more interested in saying that men--conservative, classical men--do this type of thing so much better and that we should just move on from these nasty women who were dragging the journalism down to the high school cafeteria and the gossip found there.

Which doesn't make his frustration invalid, nor does it mean that I didn't agree with some of the broader points he made.

[Steven · Rating 2 out of 5]

At around page 100, I decided that I just wasn't all that moved by what I was reading, but since I only had a couple of dozen pages to go, I finished it. It's been a while since I've read a book that I endured rather than enjoyed.

Denby's argument, that snarkiness is having a negative effect on discourse, is sound. Anyone who pays any attention would agree. But much of his writing comes across as whining and seems (to me) to come close to the snarkiness he deplores.

He picks on specific publications and people (notably Spy and Maureen Dowd), but by leaning at length on specific examples, he appears to have an axe to grind. That's the feeling I got, anyway.

In my opinion, this book might have worked better as a series of essays. Also, the book just stops, rather than ends. Like this review.

[Margie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This would get 3.5 stars if I could assign half stars. It falls short of being a 4-star book because it's a bit scattershot. If it were a longer book, this approach would become quite wearisome, but it's such a quick read that I'm able to overlook its faults.

I found the following paragraph to be a perfect summary of both my outlook and the author's: "I have a tendency, I know, to be bothered by cynicism, slander, and failed, nasty wit more than I should, and, indeed, to take things too seriously in general, yet I think the genuinely bad stuff should be noted. There is, after all, no inherent reason why a democratic media society has to be stupid."

[Jac · Rating 1 out of 5]

'intellectually lazy', as another commenter described it, seems appropriate. It is possible that the 'snark' discussed in this book could be defined as any instance of criticism or insult that is insufficiently funny, stems from some kind of jealous inferiority or bitterness, has no 'ideal' or better instance to promote, and is therefore a symptom of lazy indifference and the refusal to commit to a set of principles. But this is not spelled out anywhere (because the author 'doesn't want to get bogged down in definitions') so we are free to define it more simply as 'anything that Denby didn't like'.

/snark (I think?)

[Ted Burke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Denby is basically right on the idea that snark, which is a form of rudeness that rivals sarcasm as wit's poorest cousin, has gotten beyond the reasonable application. Where once a snide remark might have been an expression of the vitality of Democratic expression with tyrannical bounds has now become the entire discourse in much too much of the new media. Internet wise, it is often difficult or impossible to have serious exchange (or not so serious) on what concerns or interests you on the forums and in the blogosphere--movies, politics, music, economics--without the topic being trampled to death in the herd instinct to stampede an opposing view with bile.

[Daniel Ziegelbauer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like many other reviews I think this book had potential somehow and think it could have been realized within one of three options. This subject as presented could have been summarized in a few pages but a longer more entertaining course was taken. However I would be more interest in the "why" this tact is used. Not so much from a tactical power move which is simple and obvious but rather why so many are susceptible and even crave it. To paraphrase Jefferson, I tremble for my country in assuming the answer to this deeper, more analytical query. It is definitely worth the read and is enjoyable.

[Beverly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a terrific book that neatly separates meaningful satire and irony(Denby likes Jonathan Swift and the Colbert Report) from the kind of lazy, nasty pot-shots and knowing in-jokes that pollute public discourse and deliver debate into the hands of whoever is willing to be the most unfair at the highest volume. I know exactly what he's saying.
The New York article got it wrong by defending (and using) the same kind of savage humor that Denby champions and then calling that snark. It misses his point.

[Josh · Rating 1 out of 5]

How not to write a book. Denby feels that we Internet bloggers and start-up journalists are, yes, destroying culture, but also just plain mean. But then he brands meanness appropriate if you're good with words, in which case it becomes "criticism." From his diatribe against Maureen Dowd and bizarrely irrelevant assertions like "Trash talk may be derived from African oral traditions," it's clear that no writers under 50 will be invited to his backyard barbecues, housed in the church of vituperative but "clean" (whatever that means) superiority.

[Tate Williams · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an entertaining artifact of 2009, in which an aging journalist explains why the Internet is soiling public discourse and offending his refined sensibilities. David Denby seems to have been curious if he could write a whole book about how much he disliked Gawker and Maureen Dowd. And so he did.

I did take away two lessons from this book, however:

1. Don't be shitty to someone in your writing without very good reason
2. If you're being shitty for a not-very-good reason, you're probably upset about something you're not being up front about

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quick, generally interesting book on the nature of snark and why it's bad. Denby is a clever writer but the book suffers somewhat from his trying to hit a moving target in defining what snark is. Often, it seems as if "I know it when I see it" is the definition, but he gives copious examples of what he considers snark and what he considers snark-free vituperation. And any book that devotes an entire chapter (albeit a short one) to taking down Maureen Dowd is OK with me.

[Carmen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This man is against snark. He says it is damaging, petty and cruel. He is, though, a fan of satire, insult, spoofs, criticism etc. He says the Internet offers people anonymity and lets people abuse others without the other being able to defend herself or retort. He tries to distinguish between snark and other forms of comedy. He goes through the history of snark and uses many examples. I agreed with him for the most part.

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Snarkiness is certainly the prevailing style of humor in the 21st century, not least because of the anonymity and ubiquity of the Internet. This was a fascinating exploration of the whys and wherefores of snark, and hints on how we as a culture can de-snark ourselves.

[Vince Darcangelo · Rating 3 out of 5]

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This review originally appeared in the ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS

Author sounds alarm: Beware of the 'snark'
By Vince Darcangelo, Special to the Rocky

Published January 15, 2009 at 7 p.m.

Some readers might be puzzled by the title of David Denby's new book, Snark: It's Mean, It's Personal, and It's Ruining Our Conversation.

What the heck is a "snark"? And why does it have to be so darn mean?

Regulars of the blogosphere and message boards should already be familiar with the term, but for the rest of us, a good working definition of snark comes from the word's etymology - a combination of "snide" and "remark."

Snarks are critical comments - sometimes outright malicious or, as Denby argues, so lacking in substance as to come across as mean-spirited - typically found in blogs, online discussion forums and even print and television media outlets. Gossiping about the intimate lives of celebrities, for example, can be snarky. So is dismissing Michelle Obama as Barack's "baby mama" or posting on a Web site where you can name and rate a sexual partner while remaining anonymous yourself.

Put another way: Snark is glorified bathroom graffiti.

Denby, a film critic for the New Yorker magazine and author of Great Books, describes snark as "the sour underside of a liberated media culture, bumper stickers for the electronic age." He delves into the muck and resurfaces with this extended essay, which mixes historical research with thoughtful criticism and entertaining writing. He explores how emerging media have changed the way we communicate and allowed snark to infiltrate traditional journalism.

"We are in a shaky moment, a moment of transition, and I think it's reasonable to ask: What are we doing to ourselves? What kind of journalistic culture do we want? What kind of Internet culture? What kind of national conversation?"

This is Denby at the top of his game. Anyone concerned with the future of the media should necessarily be concerned with content, and Denby lays out a solid argument that is a clarion call for journalistic integrity.

Most important, Snark is enjoyable to read. Filled with witty one-liners, pop-culture deconstruction and a fair amount of highbrow snark, Denby's strong narrative voice propels the reader through the text, and even turns a history lesson into entertainment as he traces the roots of snark back to the ancient Greeks. (That's right, those snarky ancient Greeks!)

Denby reserves his sharpest knives for dicing up New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd. He takes a few stabs at the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer early on, and then devotes an entire chapter to Dowd near the end of the book. He gives her props for her writing skills, in particular her talent for comedy. But as far as being a political writer, "she has not-as far as I can tell-a single political idea in her head." But as sass, not substance, is the name of the game, Denby concludes: "In brief, she's the most gifted writer of snark in the country."

While his chapter on Dowd is often amusing, it lacks the momentum of the previous chapters, and at times borders on personal vendetta. In fact, rather than advancing Denby's premise, it disrupts the narrative thread.

Same for the quick-hit finale. These closing chapters are interesting reads, but they feel tacked on.

That is not to say that these sections don't have anything to offer. Denby closes with a great anecdote about Stephen Colbert and the infamous White House Correspondents' Dinner in 2006, when the comedian skewered George Bush - but unlike the snarkers who take shots behind anonymous Internet handles and in faceless blogs, Colbert made his jokes in Bush's presence. (Denby is a staunch defender of the satirical comedy of Colbert and Jon Stewart.) This is a prime distinction between snark and non-snark, and Denby makes this clear throughout the book.

By no means is Denby calling for the end of criticism, or satire, comedy and irony. He is quick to point out that "Gentleness is not the antidote to snark."

The trouble with snark, for him, is that it's lazy. It's a way for less-talented critics to take shots at those with more talent. And for Denby, snark's detriment to conversation is not what it contributes, but rather what it doesn't: It is criticism without substance.

"The trouble with today's snarky pipsqueaks who break off a sentence or two, or who write a couple of mean paragraphs, is that they don't go far enough; they don't have a coherent view of life . . . they're mere opportunists without dedication, and they don't win any victories."

The biggest loser, though, is all of us. This breakdown of intelligent commentary is infecting what we read, what we think, what we say. Gentleness may not be the antidote, but Denby's book just might be.


Snark through the ages

While snark might be bigger than ever, due to the modern media culture, it isn't a new invention. Here's a look at some historical incidents of snark:

* Eighth century B.C.: Snark possibly invented at a symposium, or wine party, in Athens, where men made jokes about one another in the knowing manner of snark. "The insults were offered in a kind of lewd code that blessed those men privileged enough to hear it."

* Democratic Era, Greece: Snark enters the public domain, infiltrating speeches under the guise of iambic poems. "You didn't just drop your turds in the street if you wanted to be taken seriously," writes Denby. "The abuse was still what we might call snark, but it had to work formally."

* Fifth century B.C.: Comic playwright Aristophanes lampoons the famous with fart jokes.

* First century A.D.: The Roman poet Juvenal publishes a series of satirical works, filled with such snarky gems as: "Your shaggy limbs and the bristling hair on your forearms proclaim a fierce spirit; but the surgeon who lances your swollen piles breaks up at the sight of that well-smoothed passage."

* 1743: In The Dunciad, Alexander Pope deems his rival, the actor and poet laureate Colley Cibber, King of Dunces, writing, "Next, o'er his Books his eyes began to roll / In pleasing memory of all he stole / How here he sipp'd, how there he plunder'd snug / And suck'd all o'er, like an industrious Bug."

* 1874: Lewis Carroll pens The Hunting of the Snark, a nonsense poem that elevates the word "snark" into the public lexicon.

* 1961: British satirical magazine Private Eye debuts, taking shots at the British establishment, including this critique of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band: "Their latest L.P., A Day in the Life of Ex-King Zog of Albania, took over five years to make and includes combs on paper, the sound of the Cornish Riviera Express leaving Paddington Station, two million zithers, an electric hydrofoil and the massed strings of the Tel Aviv Police band."

* 1970: Tom Wolfe publishes "These Radical Chic Evenings," an article skewering a party thrown by white celebrities in honor of the Black Panthers. "Snark as a habit of contemptuous low wit brought Tom Wolfe out - or rather, it lured him into an unhappy, jeering corner that he has never since left."

* 1986: Satirical monthly magazine Spy debuts, a publication Denby calls "the center of American snark in the eighties." The magazine took shots at celebrities and epitomized the voice of the outsider wishing to become an insider.

* Present day: Blogs, discussion boards and sites like Gawker have ushered in a new wave of writers relying on insult to garner attention. "Scratch a writer of snark," says Denby, "and you find a media-age conformist and an aesthetic nonentity."


Snark: It's Mean, It's Personal, and It's Ruining Our Conversation

* By David Denby. Simon & Schuster, 128 pages, $15.95.

* Grade: A

[A. P. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Snark by David Denby - A collection of essays about how a great deal of public discourse is built around a strain of knowing nastiness masquerading as cleverness - and how it's dragging us all down

It's a short read and hit and miss. Denby is a funny and fluent writer, but I don't think he really manages to nail down what exactly is "snark". A lot of snark that he writes about seems interchangable from other types of satire and biting wit which he holds in regard - a problem that he himself acknowledges.

You can't escape the sense, by the end of it, that Denby doesn't really care all that much about the subject which he's chosen to write about. It's important to him, but not important enough for him to have put his finger on what it was exactly that was vexing him at the time.

The collection was published in 2010, as a response to the perceived increasingly hostile tone of public dialouge of that time. Such an idea seems quaint now and it's hard not to read it now, just a few years later, as a missive from a simpler, gentler and more naive time compared to today - turns out Obama, sadly, couldn't save the day.

Some good biting observations and good prose don't really make up for the dearth of genuine rigourous facts at the core of the books argument, so I can't really recommend it.

[Sharon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Its merits - brevity, approachability, defining traits of snark, interesting references and historical anecdotes, and I think a correct assessment of the dangers of snark - are overshadowed by its aggressive politics.

I feel confident in saying that the majority of the examples of snark are from American conservatives, criticizing American liberals. Liberal victims of snark are defended, and occasionally canonized; conservative victims of snark are handwaved with a "Snark is irresistible at times" (p. 25). This imbalance is frankly admitted, with a magnanimous "Liberals are not without sin" (66). That paragraph concludes by criticizing more conservatives, so that admission feels hollow. The continual, uncompromising hatred of GW Bush and the reverence for Obama is simply wearisome, and detracts from otherwise sensible and sane points.

The book is ultimately disappointing, because I can't recommend anything after chapter 3 to anyone who doesn't have the exact political opinions of the author.

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

Denby puts together a series of essays on snark in modern culture. Denby writes in overly complex language with an abundance of examples. The section on Maureen Dowd was one the better examples of snark and political ramifications. Denby could have made the book more interesting by focusing in more detail on just a handful of snarky people. Instead, Denby's analysis goes over the top and the reader is left to assemble pieces of the snark puzzle.

[Alex · Rating 1 out of 5]

The author presents a series of poorly-organised, hostile and ill-supported criticisms of what he sees as poorly-organised, hostile, and ill-supported criticism. There's actually a whole section in here about another writer that he doesn't like. As a monument to the author's lack of self-awareness and the editor's apparent disinterest in the affair, it's actually an intriguing artefact, but it's tedious to read.

[Diane Stanley · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Jesuit comedian strongly suggested that I read this book! Yes, there is a Jesuit comedian. Not overly impressed by the first book or the second book. I do appreciate Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and even David Letterman’s morning variety show in the late 70’s and early 80’s. It was a lot of work to get through the first half of this book - not at all entertaining.

[Amanda Maregente · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve been interested in sociological views of comedy and wit since I was in college. This book nails a lot of the foundational underpinning for understanding how to identify snark versus, say, libel and explains why we find one of them humorous and the other abhorrent.

Not sure why the rating is so low on here. Definitely worthy of a higher score.