"Snark"

[David Anderson]

"Critic David Denby was sick of the insidious, sarcastic discourse that he found online. So he did what any other New Yorker writer might do (see Malcolm Gladwell) and wrote a book with a vague, one-word title. 'Snark' (Simon and Schuster), an extended essay that analyzes our conversations and all the insults buried within them, builds a timeline that spans from the Roman poet Juvenal up through the gossip Web site Gawker.com and finds Denby arguing that the need to be seen as funny or clever is ruining our conversation. He sat down with NEWSWEEK's Kurt Soller to discuss his theory."

The rest of the interview and book description can be found here http://www.newsweek.com/id/180778

In a world of social media and witnessing some of the back and forth on this deck, I found this article very insightful and relevant.