Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Snark
    Snark
    Snark
    Audiobook4 hours

    Snark

    Written by David Denby

    Narrated by William Dufris

    2.5/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    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 book, 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 Yorkndash;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 point: 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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateMar 9, 2009
    ISBN9781400181605
    Author

    David Denby

    David Denby has been film critic and staff writer at The New Yorker since 1998; prior to that he was film critic of New York magazine. His reviews and essays have also appeared in The New Republic, The Atlantic, and The New York Review of Books. He lives in New York City.

    More audiobooks from David Denby

    Related to Snark

    Related audiobooks

    Social Science For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Tripping the Late Capitalist Sublime

      Jan 28, 2022

      If our religion is capitalism, then our theology is consumerism and our God is the Invisible Hand. Our prayers are "Have it Your Way," "Think Different," and "Just Do It;" our avatars are Ronald McDonald, Mr. Peanut, and the Kool-Aid Man The post Tri

      18 min read

    • Article

      Ten Books Every Creative Person Should Read

      Jul 3, 2019

      Keep them on your desk for those times you need to be reminded that though the creative life might be lonely, you are not alone. The post Ten Books Every Creative Person Should Read appeared first on The Millions.

      5 min read

    • Article

      Orwellian Nightmares: What I Learned About Today’s Rage Culture From Rewriting 1984

      Oct 7, 2023

      A few years ago, I got what, for a writer of political fiction, is a dream job. I was invited by the estate of George Orwell to write a retelling of Nineteen Eighty-Four from the point of view of Julia, the lover of the protagonist, Winston Smith. Th

      8 min read

    • Article

      The State Of Satire

      Oct 23, 2019

      The State Of Satire
      7 min read

    • Article

      Chappelle Was Right

      Nov 15, 2022

      It really is getting harder to joke about anti-Semitism—just not for the reasons he thinks.

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Conversation

      Jun 20, 2017

      The Conversation
      5 min read

    • Article

      Heavy Weights And Hurty Words

      Mar 25, 2021

      IT IS MOST PECULIAR. If the counter-culture had a dominant theme, it was the right to criticise the establishment and to question orthodoxy of all kinds. Back in the Sixties, it was central to its mission to Expand your Consciousness, man. And it wor

      5 min read

    • Article

      The Best Nonfiction Books of 2019

      Nov 23, 2019

      The Best Nonfiction Books of 2019
      7 min read

    • Article

      2020 Is Winding Down, But The Drama Isn't: Read These Books Now To Make Sense Of It

      Sep 9, 2020

      Trainwreck. Demented. A dumpster fire of a year. We've all seen the social media memes, and most of us are ready to be done with 2020. But it isn't over yet. We still have a rancorous election season ahead of us as the country continues to reel from

      7 min read

    • Article

      The Charleston “Debate”

      Feb 26, 2020

      The Charleston “Debate”
      4 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Snark

    2.5/5

    45 ratings9 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 1/5
      So... what is snark?

      I think I had a better idea before starting this book. The author just seemed to be on a tirade against mean-spirited humor. But then some is okay if it's ironic or clever.
    • 2/5
      Too much of this slim volume was spent on the history of snark as well as splitting the hairs of snark, satire and criticism. While the definitions are important I would have appreciated more time on the impact that snark has on our conversations these days. Of course, the book was written in 2008 (published in 2009) and I'm reading it through the TikTok, Facebook, Twitter lens of 2020, so perhaps that's enough to slant my view. Perhaps it's time for an update?
    • 1/5
      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 kind of interesting, but it's tedious to read.
    • 1/5
      This book has the dubious honor of being only the second book I have ever thrown in the garbage, so that no one else would waste a moment of their precious time reading my copy. Other reviewers have thoroughly detailed its myriad problems with accuracy and being heinously guilty of the snark it claims to revile, so I won't re-hash. I will, however, chime in with the chorus of reviewers who find Mr. Denby's style pompous and sufficiently awful as to be downright unreadable. If I could give it zero stars, I would. Thank goodness I wasted only a dollar on this horrid little book.
    • 4/5
      A brief, witty commentary on the ongoing decline of civility, cleverness, and humor in spoken and written communication.
    • 3/5
      This short book is an extended essay on Denby's views on the problem of snark in our public discourse. On the cover it says, "Snark. It's Mean, It's Personal, and It's Ruining Our Conversation." He distinguishes snark from the more esteemed and legitimate irony and satire: "snark, by contrast, has zero interest in civic virtue or anything else except the power of ridicule." He finds snark "irresponsible" and that it has "a common tendency" of "disengagement from the matter at hand." I didn't particularly like this book, and while reading I was thinking of what I'd say in my comments here, and planned to tell you that a university prof that I was friendly with told me she taught a class at Columbia University that Denby audited while he wrote Great Books, and that he was "an ass." Now I liked Great Books quite a bit (maybe because I was a mature student taking similar classes and so I could identify with some of what he wrote), and I've liked most of what I've read of his writing in the New Yorker, but I didn't much like Snark. While reading it, I kept thinking, "this guy IS an ass." Anyway, I probably shouldn't have shared this tidbit because, 1) it was told to me in a personal conversation, and 2), Denby would probably say I was using snark. And that's a bad thing. So ignore this paragraph. Anyway, although I didn't much like this book, I do think he has a point, and it is thought-provoking. I had planned to pass it on, but I think I'll hold it for a bit, and maybe reread it if it's still on my mind. A book that makes you think is a good thing, isn't it. Also, he holds Stephen Colbert in the highest esteem (just a notch down from Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal). And he dislikes Sarah Palin for her snarkiness (never mind all the other reasons). So that's all good.Recommended for: People interested in media and cultural studies. It's a quick read, so not much of a gamble if you think you might be interested.
    • 3/5
      I will begin by saying that I loved Denby's Great Books and that is one reason why I picked this up to read at the library. In this book he thoroughly discusses snark in all its incarnations with accompanying examples of criticism, satire, irony, and snark. However, occasionally Denby gets carried away with his great gift of language and causes me to reread an entire paragraph or more to figure out what he tried to say. I found this extremely tedious and it detracted from my enjoyment and understanding of the book. Please be a little more concise for your less educated (but admiring) readers, David.
    • 3/5
      Aeyan's review is interesting, and a good summary. I enjoyed this book, but felt bad about myself when I finished it. (I confess that I too like snarkiness; it makes me snort, which is one of the words the author discusses...I think... in connection with the origins of the word.)This IS the big question: "The underlying differentiation seems to stem from the usage of the written or verbal attack to merely denigrate, or whether it serves to elevate or illustrate with intent to rectify the failings of the subject." I suspect that the latter is the case. Worrisome.
    • 4/5
      Snarky is one of my favorite adjectives. For me it recalls a mode of surviving the degradations of corporate inanity, customer irritability, and coworker absurdity. Snark provided a vehicle to vent with sympathetic ears and alleviate tension with acid humor and commiseration. So when Denby's 'polemic in seven fits' released with this subtitle and the cover description of 'it's mean, it's personal, and it's ruining our conversation,' I was a bit taken aback. How could my favorite method of coworker relations be damaging our conversation? Deciding I had to engage with this lengthy essay to see if it was so much fluff or if Denby argued a valid point (I'd like to say I was open minded enough to entertain the latter, but it was mostly the former), I slipped into the very astute flow of his logic. Tracing the origins of the word itself to Lewis Carroll's 'The Hunting of the Snark: An Agony, in Eight Fits,' Denby delves further backward to historical antecedents such as the Roman Juvenal and Swift and Pope, taking it through the recent past as used within the English and American magazines 'Private Eye' and 'Spy.' Pulling us into modern usage, Denby then examines the innumerable explosions of snark that the Internet has carried forth, as everyone seeks to make their voice heard, increasingly finding that the vituperative and personal method of snark is the simplest method. At this point in the collective discourse, he states that this 'narrative of ascendancy and decline' is promulgated by nearly everyone, is unavoidable in its permutations, and has even extended into a type of media currency (84). The ascent refers to the proliferation of a type of celebrity status, quickly and viciously followed by an often near libelous reversal via snark. The ruination of modern conversation comes about in this personal vindictiveness that epitomizes snark, coupled with its lack of involvement on the part of the one writing the snark. Denby's comparative usages of snark versus his higher regarded use of irony and satire can appear somewhat tenuous, indeed he admits that each case is best judged individually, but he lays a somewhat loose guideline of the form for the reader to follow. He examines politics as one area rife with snark versus satire, holding Maureen Dowd up as the very intelligent but vacuous queen of snark compared to Stephen Colbert whose brilliance is in his elevated and engaged social satire. The underlying differentiation seems to stem from the usage of the written or verbal attack to merely denigrate, or whether it serves to elevate or illustrate with intent to rectify the failings of the subject. Denby ends with his invitation to cathartically commit all the vituperative acts of social satire and critique within one's ability, but to resist the temptation to slip into a snarky mode, and though I find myself a bit more situated to comfortably assert that my favorite method of verbal release remains a level above snark (usually, okay, sometimes), I cannot resist the wonderful glibness and succinctness that the word itself evokes. Thus will I continue to snark away, albeit with the knowledge that my discourse should retain the sense of satire that contributes to an increased awareness, rather than the merely nasty and useless bitching. Who am I kidding, snark is damn fun!