Snark Alert

David Denby, film critic for The New Yorker and author of Snark: It's Mean, It's Personal, and It's Ruining Our Conversation, takes issue with the prevalence of snarkiness in the internet age.

Urban Dictionary:

1. Combination of "snide" and "remark". Sarcastic comment(s).
   Also snarky (adj.) and snarkily (adv.)
   
   "Your boundless ineptitude is astounding," she snarkily declared.
   
   
2. Verbal ingenuineness that is brief, subtle, yet quite stabbing. Snark is often marked by deep creativity & use of psychological attack. It employs coldbloodedness and is best served unprovoked. Snark can contain hidden complimentary meaning under a mean face, but it hurts more than it strengthens.

I've noticed that I have been a victim of some recent snark. I don't know what to make of it because I have an acquaintance level relationship with this person. Was the snarky comment meant to hurt me? Am I supposed to feel bad? If the answer is "yes", then I'm confused because I just feel sorry that that person can't confront the situation and instead goes for snark. (Ultimately looking pitifully scornful and immature.)

I have to admit that when I'm among friends, we embrace snark as a means to joke around. (But hey, isn't THAT snark? Not entirely so because we're not directing it to others. We're fake-snarky to each other.) To an outsider, we may sound like jerks, but if you really listen to how we're feeding off each others' joking snarks, it's quite obvious that we're mocking our snarky-selves.

Maybe I'm getting it all wrong(?) because the comment wasn't even sophisticated enough to be snark. Or maybe I just love saying snark. Snark. Snark. SNARK!! I ♥ SNARK!