Snark is often conflated with cynicism, which is a troublesome misreading. Snark may speak in cynical terms about a cynical world, but it is not cynicism itself. It is a theory of cynicism.
The practice of cynicism is smarm.
I’m going to have to protest the misuse of “cynic” and “cynicism” – it complicates many of our discussions, and the author winds up on two sides of the definition here. Snark is definitely the tool of a true Cynic. The practice of those a Cynic is snarky about is properly a kind of Nihilism.
But yeah, I know what he means.
Does anyone remember the advertising executive, gloating in the month following the September 11th attack that “the age of cynicism irony is over!”. CynicismIrony and snark are the two most important weapons against the most consistent purveyors of smarm: advertisers.
(getting my own terms wrong)
