I mean yeah at its worst and most toxic, the Discourse is ALWAYS Maximum Snark paired with Maximum Smarm, the two go together That's why the GG 4chan fascist trolls tried to brand themselves as viciously nihilistic but were absurdly defensive of their sacred icons
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Replying to @arthur_affect @mssilverstein and
"D&D SAVED MY LIFE AS A SUICIDAL LONELY TEENAGER AND NOW YOU'RE CALLING ME RACIST AND CALLING ALL MY FRIENDS RACIST HOW DARE YOU" Immediately followed "Oh noes I was doxed and harassed from on top of my big pile of SJW Patreon money cry moar bitch"
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It's the principle of maximum retaliation, with the ultimate aim of deterrence I think. Don't engage, because it will be so unpleasant you'll wish you never showed up.
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Yeah I mean that's kind of the thing I agree that people who have become very successful and powerful saying "I just don't listen to critics anymore" like Dave Eggers are infuriating - putting up the fortifications, the walls of smarm
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Replying to @arthur_affect @mssilverstein and
At the same time, there's just so many fucking critics now Everyone with the money to put up the big walls has done so because the air is thick with bullets Who the hell actually does listen to all their critics, how would you survive that
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Replying to @arthur_affect @mssilverstein and
Every mildly Twitter famous person has a dozen screaming trolls in their mentions every day "WHY WON'T YOU RESPOND TO CRITICISM"
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Replying to @arthur_affect @mssilverstein and
We don't say "smarm vs snark" much now but the current evolution of this is the fight over self-care discourse "Just log off for a while and run a blockchain on the trolls for the sake of your mental health"
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Replying to @arthur_affect @mssilverstein and
The thing being that advice is equally applicable if you're a queer teenager targeted by homophobes or if you're a Republican senator targeted by your impoverished constituents
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Replying to @arthur_affect @mssilverstein and
It all really comes down, in the end, not to axioms about snark vs smarm or self care vs not, but "What are you defending yourself about? what are your foundational premises?" and we're not comfortable making arguments on premises so we focus on forms.
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Replying to @loudpenitent @mssilverstein and
Right, Scocca I think was reacting to a then-current trend where people were decrying "snark" or "irony" *universally* and saying this was often a deceptive defense of the powerful, which is true But the better argument is just that they don't mean it and don't do it
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We can argue back and forth over whether having catapults is a good thing for the world and if wishing they didn't exist so there'd be no more war between city-states is just defending the wealthiest cities But the real point is no one is actually disarming their catapults
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Replying to @arthur_affect @loudpenitent and
The flip side of this is that pretending that attacking rather than defending *automatically* makes you the good guy is just as blinkered and hypocritical a worldview, and one that way more people than Scocca admits seem to hold
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Replying to @arthur_affect @loudpenitent and
"On Smarm" predates Jon Ronson's So You've Been Publicly Shamed, which is about how, to modernize the argument a little, the Internet has given us all loaded guns and itchy trigger fingers and has no interest in inventing better bulletproof vests
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