even shorter version: humanity is ugly. But still, at least a lucid examination of the snarky thing (and yeah, it does seem like the same discussion occurred before it only about irony) is in order when people are starting to champion that this effect of human behavior is a positive one and a cry for truth and straightness and whatever else. It’s one thing to default to the truism “humans are kinda awful sometimes” and another, newer thing, to suggest “we’re awful because we’re awesome!!”.

This.

i sort of dig champion’s counterthrust but am very, very confused as to why the subject of tom cruise requires serious thought or emotional commitment

I once saw someone struggle through a great deal of inner-turmoil in deciding their feelings on Tom Cruise in a Youtube comment. It was a video of Tom Cruise being squirted in the face when he was doing an interview and subsequently chiding the person responsible; the comment went something along the lines of:

“heh, tom cruise is cool…kinda.. but he’s still a bitch and can’t take a joke”

perhaps the deluge of snark (back in my day it was a deluge of irony) is merely a reflection of this webbed up, 2.0 world we live in where everyday dicks like me can say whatever with little or no cost. not everyone is going to have something of substance to say about something; the rest of us are going to have a like/dislike reaction, and one way to get attention for something that’s otherwise insignificant is to be a jerk about it.

shorter, snarky version: democracy is fugly.

KG

i sort of dig champion’s counterthrust but am very, very confused as to why the subject of tom cruise requires serious thought or emotional commitment. is it not a core cultural problem – or so everyone seems to be stabbing at from some direction – that far too much work is put into the inconsequential, even in destroying it? a film critic might not want to get too close to that particular line, for obvious reasons, but still.

No love for alien weapons in halflife 2 except antlion spores.