kind of sick of knee-jerk reactionary cynicism, having watched both Steve Irwin and Jeff Corwin on animal planet for years...grew up watching Wild Kingdom. Here are some snippets from a great article deconstructing snark, the kind that alot of people are flinging at the news of Irwin's death, his career and his humanity. Not only was he a conservationist as other people have noted but his exaggerated persona caught the attention of children drew their interest toward a worthy cause. May not be the most interesting post on this topic but I kind of want to place this in amongst the sneers as a sort of cyber voodoo if nothing else...
"Snark refers to a belittling style of speech or writing. It could loosely be described as irritable or "snidely derisive"; hence, 'snarkish', 'snarky', 'to snark at somebody'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snark_%28speech%29http://www.blackbookmag.com/Public/Index.asp?page_ID=19&content_id=562&AQ_Archive_Date=3/14/2007Post Snark
"Then I read a column in SF Weekly that turned on Dave Eggers--one of the writers who gave me advice--mocking his efforts to be of service to kids by organizing a charity event.
They systematically twisted it to appear like the most deviant behavior on earth. "The night felt like a variation on his overlong New Yorker story: Rich white assholes go to Africa to try to give away money but fail."
It was my first visceral run-in with snark--this pervasive attitude in pop media where nothing is above disparagement. I wept, as retarded as that sounds, because a naive part of me was flabbergasted that starting a writing workshop for kids could be mocked.
As the next decade nears, though, I'd like to think that some of those Poseidon storm-conjurer types have blown themselves dry, and maybe, just maybe, we have in our sights a post-snark docking, where the current trend will be seen in the same passé light as the Sex Pistols saw the hippies. But first I'd like to ponder: "When, oh, when did snark become an acceptable pose for journalists, be they bloggers hiding out in daddy's rec room or fellas fanning themselves under the fearsome moniker of the New York Times?"
Kurt Andersen, cofounder of Spy, the magazine that some argue was the birthplace of snark, points to the Internet: "Now, everyone in this ultrademocratic age of blogging has a voice," Kurt tells me. "So, yeah, it's the age of the heckler. It is one of the prices we pay for this empowering technology."
"Generation X is notorious for rejecting advertising and commercial consumerism," says Hans. "Our natural reaction to it was this deep cynicism about everything. You listen to a CD, watch a movie, read a book, and you wonder who's trying to sell you what in this transaction. That's what really fed the initial impulse to snark. It's this vulnerability that we feel; that we're not safe to earnestly embrace anything because we suspect someone's going to take advantage of us."
"I think the backlash is already upon us." Hans adds. "I sense that kids 20 to 30 are responding really negatively to snark. And that doesn't mean they're mindlessly embracing consumerism and culture--it just means that we've moved beyond that. There's good advertising, there's bad advertising; there's good product, there's bad product, there are brilliant celebrities, there are idiotic celebrities; and we're smart enough now not to just dismiss everything out of hand because of this reactionary cynicism."
Snark is not the new black--it's the old crack, a hard addiction to bust off. But even junkies can reach that point where they can't use anymore, where they just have to feel how bad they feel. It's a hitting bottom, because the drug no longer works. You're gonna reach that point where the pain of using is more than not."
So there. This may sink like a stone, but at least it's in here amongst the naysayers...