In Daniel Kehlmann’s novel Me and Kaminski (2008), a young art critic named Sebastian Zöllner tracks down a once-famous, now-reclusive painter named Manuel Kaminski. Zöllner wants to write the definitive biography about Kaminski. By “definitive”, I mean scurrilous. Zöllner, you see, isn’t much of an art lover. He’s a nasty wannabe who thinks the art world should revolve around him. He isn’t knowledgeable nor talented. For example, he’s too lazy to visit art exhibits to see famous paintings (why bother when you can see them in books?). He doesn’t have any strong views on the subject that are his own (“A couple of [paintings] kept me looking for a long time. … But it was better not to like them, because the critical reaction to them had been annihilating.” p. 39). Zöllner is more interested in being seen as a clever expert rather than actually being one. And works of art are less important to him than sordid gossip about the artist.

To make a long story short, even though Zöllner lacks critical judgment about art, he does have an obsession that drives him to the brink. His obsession is Kaminski. He acts snide towards anyone who doesn’t share his obsession. He dismisses other people’s interests. For his part, Kaminski sees through all of Zöllner’s superficial and opportunistic hero worship. So, in sadistic style, he leads Zöllner around on a goose chase through Germany while subtly torturing the fool.

I mention Kehlmann’s novel because it’s a masterful study of the snarky commentator. Zöllner is the poster child of the shallow, snide egoist. Here’s a passage in which Zöllner struggles to write an article that slags off a rival biographer, Hans Bahring.

Hans Bahring, I wrote, who has made many … no! … numerous attempt to bore us to death … yes, that’s it … with his insights, no, badly researched insights into lives of important, no, prominent, no, that’s even worse. I thought for a moment … historical personalities, has come up with another one. To call his just-published biography of the artist, no, painter Georges Braque a failure would probably be to overpraise a book that … I stuck the pencil between my teeth. Now I needed something really to the point. I pictured Bahring’s face when he read the article, but that didn’t give me any ideas either. (Kehlmann, 2008, p. 6; italics and points of ellipsis in original)

That’s snarky. Notice that Zöllner is trying to appear witty and knowing but, instead, comes across as bitter. His snarky comments are a personal attack, not a critique of the substance of Bahring’s book. Indeed, as the story unfolds, you discover that Zöllner doesn’t believe that good books get good reviews. It’s all about who you know and what strings you pull. He doesn’t feel free to attack those who can further his career. But he does feel free to attack rivals and strangers. Zöllner is as much a cynic and opportunist as he is a snark.

Snark: It’s Mean, It’s Personal, and It’s Ruining Our Conversation by David Denby (Simon & Schuster, 2009), pp. 128.

David Denby has written a new book about the Sebastian Zöllners of the world. It’s called Snark. Denby argues that snarky comments are a rapidly growing narrative form that is undermining public discourse. The snarky comment is an insult that shuts down meaningful debate by discrediting an adversary. It’s a brutish ad hominem smearing that has enough popular appeal to spread. Politicians and critics are using snarky sound-bites to get noticed and discredit others who don’t share their views. These sound-bites circulate quickly and widely on the Internet. Moreover, anonymous commenters on news sites and blogs often shed all inhibition and sense of responsibility as they slander at will. This may seem like rebellion, argues Denby, but it enforces conformity: those who stand too tall tend to get cut down.

Let’s look at my favourite example from American politics. When Hillary Clinton was campaigning to be the Democratic candidate for U.S. President, her campaign jet was dubbed “Pantsuit One” by some snide journos. (It’s a play on Air Force One, which is the name—or “call sign”—of the President’s jet.) The jibe is funny enough to be told and retold, but not funny enough to earn anything more than a smirk. During the campaign, journalists were obsessed with Clinton’s appearance and insinuated, with pantsuit comments and such, that she was trying to be an alpha-male. “Pantsuit One” is arguably a code word aimed at working-class men, a strategically important group of voters for Clinton. The code signals that Clinton is a besuited élitist, a jet-setter, the trouser-wearer of the household, and a pretender to the throne. Forget Clinton’s policy pronouncements. Instead, smirk at the caricature implied by the snarky remark.

Denby’s book has similar examples. What makes the book particularly interesting is its description of the anatomy of snarkiness. Before I go there, however, I need to say a few words about Denby’s strange use of the term snark as diction.

This is a book about snarky comments, although snarky forms of visual communication are occasionally mentioned (e.g., mocking gestures and publishing unflattering photos to mock someone). The book is also about a pattern of behaviour and tone of voice that can be labelled snarkiness in plain English (i.e. being snarky). I’ve always thought that someone who is snarky can be called “a snark”. Indeed, the origins of the term suggest as much. Snark comes from a Jonathan Swift story that combines “snail” and “shark” to describe a beast that is usually harmless, but sometimes not. It’s a great coinage because the shark implies a predatory attack, while the snail implies a lazy and slovenly effort that leaves a trail of slime.

All of that said, Denby uses the term “snark” to describe the comments, behaviour, and tone; it’s all snark to him. But he doesn’t call people snarks. That’s inconsistent with normal English usage to my ear (and according to my dictionaries). Denby’s usage is tied to a new slang style. Snark also rings like fark (i.e. useless trivia that mainstream news outlets publish when they run out of real news; see Curtis, 2007). I may sound pedantic here but I find Denby’s usage confusing and distracting in places. I’ll stick with the plain language usage.

With that clarified, what exactly is the nature of the snarky comment and snarkiness in general? And what can be said of the character of the snarky commentator?

It’s possible to pull out several defining features of snarkiness from Denby’s book. Snarkiness involves (a.) insulting someone or some group in a nasty, heckling way. It is a variant of the ad hominem fallacy because it’s a personal attack instead of a scrutiny of the substance of an argument. Snarkiness is (b.) a knowing abuse that appeals to the prejudice or preconceptions of others. The coded insult or innuendo involves slyly drawing attention to an understanding shared by others of a similar ilk. Simply put, an underhanded reference is being made. Snarkiness is (c.) tinged with humour, although the humour is never very funny and is often quite pathetic. It’s a form of “teasing” and “rug-pulling”, as Denby puts it. There may be enough humour, however, to allow an attacker to deflect blame. If the victim gets too angry, that person can be dismissed as a humourless and overly sensitive mope who takes things too seriously. So that’s snarkiness.

As Denby correctly points out, snarkiness tends to be a form of intellectual laziness and conformity. Snarks tend to use hackneyed terms and expressions. The snarky comment lacks originality and imagination. Old sayings and jokes are recycled. The language used is neither well crafted nor clever. Thus, an adversary is put on the defensive by an attacker who expends the minimum amount of effort. If someone lacks knowledge or expertise, they can attack the adversary to discredit their views while diverting attention away from their own inadequacies. Thus, snarky comments can be a form of evasion. Is it any wonder that snarkiness is a popular technique among lazy pundits who can’t bother keeping abreast of their area of supposed expertise? This inherent laziness also means that the personal attacks tend to pick on any available vulnerability. As Denby puts it:

[Snarkiness] seizes on any vulnerability or weakness it can find—a slip of the tongue, a sentence not quite up-to-date, a bit of flab, an exposed boob, a blotch, a blemish, a wrinkle, an open fly, an open mouth, a closed mouth. It exploits—slyly, teasingly—race and gender prejudice. When there are no vulnerabilities, it makes them up. (p. 57)

All of this tends to reinforce conformity and mediocrity. Snarkiness is a characteristic of the less capable, although Denby makes a distinction between high-brow and low-brow snarkiness based on how cultured the attack is. Low-brow snarkiness, the most common form, is pure philistinism. Bad: tut, tut. High-brow snarkiness is the Oxbridge bun-fight banter published in Private Eye magazine. Bad … maybe. So says the swooning Denby. Steady, boy.

Denby isn’t an anti-snark absolutist. He acknowledges that we are all tempted to make snarky comments from time to time. For a professional critic—Denby is a film critic—snarkiness is an occupational hazard. However, not all forms of irreverent critical attack are snarky. Denby takes pains to distance snarkiness from more artistic and clever forms of critique, such as irony, satire, folk wisecracks, and parody. He thinks that these tend to serve a higher ideal and insight instead of being merely cynical and self-serving. They also require more skill and taste. When these forms stray from high ideals and cleverness, they tend to lapse into snarkiness. It’s difficult to draw fine lines here and Denby wavers a lot in his line drawing. But I think that he does an okay job of separating the darkness of snarkiness from the lightness of irreverent critique, bun fights notwithstanding.

I began this review with Kehlmann’s novel Me and Kaminski because of the way it describes the typical snarky critic, Sebastian Zöllner. It turns out that Denby’s description of the snark is very similar. Snarky people tend to be gripped by an obsession and petty agenda, just as Zöllner is. They dismiss those who don’t share the same interests while signaling fraternity with those who do. Snarks tend to be outsiders who are throwing stones at those with high status because they are wannabes and pretenders (including adolescent prats, presumably). Alternatively, they are insiders who are losing their grip on high status and act snarky to ward off perceived threats. In either case, snarks are resentful. They think of themselves as deserving. Both Kehlmann’s and Denby’s snarks are parasitic. Finally, as Denby stresses, snarks lack social graces. They are unmannered and lack taste, even though many snarks have a self-image of sophistication.

I recommend Denby’s Snark. The book is not without its shortcomings, however.

The historical account of snarkiness is, by Denby’s own admission, extremely selective. For example, in his survey of the snarks of antiquity, how could he exclude Diogenes, the archetypical snark-outsider? Denby is more focused on the literary snarks of ancient Greece and Rome. His modern examples seem preoccupied with the New York media scene (both print and online). Devoting an entire chapter to the New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd is a bit much.

Denby wrote a chapter about the anatomy of snarkiness that lists the principles of snarky style. The principles are about how snarks: abandon reasoned argument and journalistic ethics; appeal to prejudice and throw mud; reduce complexity to the point of caricature. That’s all true. However, this isn’t a very tidy commentary about the main ingredients of snarkiness. Denby overloads the concept by including ageism (oldsters are an easy target), the fickleness of adoration (we adore celebrities then we loath them, with paparazzi ready to oblige either way), and the extreme snarkiness of restaurant critics (like this one). These strike me as fertile grounds for snarkiness, but not essential principles, as Denby labels them. Speaking of fertile grounds, more could be said about how the sound-bite format favoured by the mainstream media and advertisers is ideally suited to snarkiness. That’s a missed opportunity.

Review by Peter Stoyko

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