Sunday, June 25, 2017

Age of Snark!

Snarky:  (of a person, words, or a mood) sharply critical; cutting; snide.
‘the kid who makes snarky remarks in class’


Right. We live in the Age of Snark. We are all so critical, cutting, snide. I think our Smart Phones feed this snarkiness, which is a sort of a corroded snakiness too.

It is so easy, to sit back on our couches (in our underwear), surf the known Universe, and snark on every little thing in our timeline. Especially snark on things we know very little about. Snarkiness and Unknowingness go well together.

We are all so childish. Biting. Cynical. As Marshall McLuhan once remarked "the medium is the message." In my lifetime we've gone from the TV to the PC to the Smart Phone.

In the olden days we used to sit in our living rooms and yell at, or shoot bullets at, the TV. It was sort of private thing, or if not alone, only your closest friends and family members were in the club. Now it all spills out online for all the world to see.

We used to sit stupefied in front of the TV, our twirling eyeballs taking it all in. Now we are in a dialogue with everything floating over and thru us. And we are getting expert at snark. It is a grand snark culture.

Can you build an economy on snark? Can you keep a Democracy in the Age of Snark? Can you live a full, well-rounded life snarking off? Me thinks probably not.

Maybe our only hope is to once in awhile to put the smart phone down. To do something with all our heart and soul. Fully engage in something. Give it our all. Fill ourselves up so there is no room for snark.

The radical rebellious pose: Be engaged. Love. Live. Devote yourself fully to everything you do. Always be onto the next thing. There is no time for snark, life is too short. The clock is always ticking...