Is Snark a Bad Thing?

Henry Holiday’s original ilustration to The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll (Photo – Public domain).

It has been brought to my attention on more than one occasion in the last few of months that snark, that combination of sarcasm and cynicism, is passé and “so last century”. It was made clear that snark is considered by some to be a bad thing.

By Robin Southworth

Really?!?!

Definition from UrbanDictionary.com: “A witty mannerism, personality, or behavior that is a combination of sarcasm and cynicism. Usually accepted as a complimentary term. Snark is sometimes mistaken for a snotty or arrogant attitude.”

However, as one of my friend’s noted a couple months back: “There’s a difference between joking or teasing and snarking. Snarking feels bad when you get it because it is disguised as a joke, but it’s actually passive aggressive with annoyance, bitterness or anger under it…”

I polled my friends for my snark quotient — Am I snarky? My friends, ranging from the USA, to Australia, Canada, and India, replied with the following comments:

Whether you are being good snarky or bad snarky is in the eye of the snarkholder.

How else are we to respond to the High Fructose Corn Syrup that has infected most of popular culture?…You are what you are, and we love you for it. If some people aren’t secure enough in who they are to appreciate your humor, well, then that’s their loss.

Snarky is just one color of the rainbow (retching) that is us (gagging).

That’s why you’re my friend. I have no interest in people with no sense of snark…

…stop contemplating your freakin’ snark and exercise it!

I think the anti-snark people are confusing snarkiness with just being an a**hole.

I have found my new group on Facebook…Snarky…Join me.

I can’t help being snarky. I grew up with snark all around me. Snark has been around for a very long time.

I watched Watergate unfold in real time. Mostly on the evening news. If I wasn’t snarky before, Watergate certainly showed me the way to snark.

As a kid, I watched Bugs Bunny and Road Runner cartoons. My parents and I used to crawl into bed together on Saturday mornings (family time!) and watch them together, laughing until we hurt. It doesn’t get much snarkier than Bugs and the Road Runner.

I grew up on old movies (Thanks, Mom!). Where would movies be without the sarcasm and cynicism of The Front Page, Bringing Up Baby, Casablanca, Adam’s Rib, All About Eve, The Maltese Falcon, Murder by Death, The Thin Man movies, and any movie with The Marx Brothers or Carole Lombard? Heck, let’s throw in all the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies, too. Ginger was one snarky dame!

If I am snarky, then I am in good company with Twain, Dickens, and Swift. Where would Star Wars be without a snarky (and hunky) Han Solo? Saturday Night Live’s humor would not be the same without snark. Political commentary would be just more blah blah blah without snark. The original Star Trek wouldn’t be fun if Dr. McCoy wasn’t snarky.

My mother always taught me that I am who I am, and if others don’t like it, to heck with them. Why am I not enough for some people just as I am? Why do I have to stop being who I am for them? Changing for others rarely makes relationships, of any sort, work out well. I was like this when they met me.

Didn’t they notice? If they’ve changed, does that change who I am or is the difference about how you now perceive me? Is that perception a bad thing?

I actually like me…as I am…snark and all. I didn’t always like me. It took a long, long time to get here. I refuse to allow others to try to make me feel bad about who I am. I further refuse to change who I am for someone else. Changing who I am would be like putting me in a burqa — you can cover me up, but underneath I’m still in short-shorts, flip-flops, and a tube top.

So, I am embracing my inner snark. My snark is not meant to be mean, bitter, annoying, or passive aggressive. Being sarcastic and cynical is just a part of who I am. Most of you knew that when you befriended me. The rest of you learned of my sarcasm later and continue to be my friend anyway.

Snark makes me laugh. Just as with love, laughter is sometimes too hard to come by to ever waste it on people who can’t appreciate your sense of humor.