Is Dissensus Learning?

[nomadthethird]

Americans were sarcastic long before the internet came around.

I do agree with the whole bit about anonymous people being able to speak from the imaginary "center", though...

This can have disastrous results e.g. that woman who logged onto AIM anonymously and goaded a teen girl into hanging herself.

But tragedy strikes without the internet, too. In the past three months two teen girls in the town I'm in have hanged themselves from trees. One had an infant daughter.

I get annoyed with the cottage industry that's formed around blaming the internet for all the world's problems, too.

 

[IdleRich]

"Snark" is the thing that New Yorker film critic David Denby thinks is destroying our conversation, way of life, etc... He wrote a recent book on this theme. I haven't read the book, so can't comment on the validity of his thesis. But it is quite an interesting idea - the notion that a certain way of speaking, grown in the digital hothouse, can spread to epidemic proportions, and become a real menace.

I still don't get what it is though. Or at least what differentiates it from what I said before and how it is specific to the internet. Seems I'm not alone in being confused as well, I looked up the book on Amazon and this is from the first reader review:

About halfway through David Denby's Snark, I realized that I still didn't know exactly what Denby meant by snark. Before I started the book, I was confident that I understood what snark was: a sarcastic, possibly clever, comment, a smart aleck remark. But after reading Denby's numerous examples on what is and isn't snark, I realized that he thought it was something more than that. But what?
Denby gives many examples of what snark is and what it is not. This should be helpful, but he contradicts himself time after time.

 

[josef k.]

"Or at least what differentiates it from what I said before and how it is specific to the internet. Seems I'm not alone in being confused as well, I looked up the book on Amazon and this is from the first reader review:"

What you said before was right - I think. But Denby (UB-) basically thinks that it is out of control. It has swelled to monstrous proportions. It is unleashed. On the loose. Rampant. Because of the internet. Essentially.

Whether or not this is true, I think it is fair to say that different mediums change the way that people communicate. Another example - the soundbite. Or a negative one, the very long, erudite speech. It strikes me that - maybe - people are not as good at talking as they used to be. Not as good as listening. Not as good as conversing generally. Possibly. The lost art of conversation?

 

[Grievous Angel]

You can't cook, plant trees or make love on the internet.

 

[IdleRich]

"What you said before was right - I think. But Denby (UB-) basically thinks that it is out of control. It has swelled to monstrous proportions. It is unleashed. On the loose. Rampant. Because of the internet. Essentially."

OK, I understand the idea now. I find it hard to say whether it's true or not. It's so difficult to step back and take a view of a big picture over time when you are part of that society and of that time.

"Whether or not this is true, I think it is fair to say that different mediums change the way that people communicate. Another example - the soundbite."

Of course. But I also think that some people are resistant to any change and see the changes that the internet brings as definitely for the worse.

"You can't cook, plant trees or make love on the internet."

Yet.

 

[Mr. Tea]

You can't cook, plant trees or make love on the internet.

But you can use it to watch videos of other people doing those things. Probably all at once, if you know where to look.

 

[bassnation]

You can't cook, plant trees or make love on the internet.

sure, but my current girlfriend found me on facebook after not seeing each other for 15 years or more.

i can whet my appetite for learning to cook on the many excellent resources on the net.

and as for making love... erm, well i suppose its good for solo performances.

i don't understand why people view it in such binary terms - real life OR internet, thats a false dichotomy in my opinion. a significant chunk of my life has been spent communicating with people on the net. i don't view it as time wasted at all.

 

[bassnation]

"Or at least what differentiates it from what I said before and how it is specific to the internet. Seems I'm not alone in being confused as well, I looked up the book on Amazon and this is from the first reader review:"

What you said before was right - I think. But Denby (UB-) basically thinks that it is out of control. It has swelled to monstrous proportions. It is unleashed. On the loose. Rampant. Because of the internet. Essentially.

Whether or not this is true, I think it is fair to say that different mediums change the way that people communicate. Another example - the soundbite. Or a negative one, the very long, erudite speech. It strikes me that - maybe - people are not as good at talking as they used to be. Not as good as listening. Not as good as conversing generally. Possibly. The lost art of conversation?

denby's view is completely at odds with the british sense of humour imo. dry and drier still, designed to puncture pomposity. the idea that this somehow prevents creativity is utter nonsense. yet another proponent of old media whining about their loss of mindshare.

 

[Mr. Tea]

i don't understand why people view it in such binary terms - real life OR internet, thats a false dichotomy in my opinion. a significant chunk of my life has been spent communicating with people on the net. i don't view it as time wasted at all.

There was an utterly retarded anti-FaceBook rant in the Guardian a while ago, by some guy who obviously spends EVERY WAKING MINUTE doing something important, profitable or pleasurable that those other poor saps are too busy wasting their lives on social networking sites to ever get round to. Because clearly, it's solely the fact that I'm posting on an internet forum that's preventing me from skiing in the French Alps, having a deep'n'meaningful conversation with a relative or discovering a cure for Aids right now.

 

[bassnation]

There was an utterly retarded anti-FaceBook rant in the Guardian a while ago, by some guy who obviously spends EVERY WAKING MINUTE doing something important, profitable or pleasurable that those other poor saps are too busy wasting their lives on social networking sites to ever get round to. Because clearly, it's solely the fact that I'm posting on an internet forum that's preventing me from skiing in the French Alps, having a deep'n'meaningful conversation with a relative or discovering a cure for Aids right now.

it IS real life. all of it, every waking moment, on the net or not. my currency is ideas and empathy, the fact i can have this by connecting to a global network that touches most of humanity i think is the most wonderful thing. it only serves to enhance the time i am away from the computer by allowing me to build many real world relationships that have stood the test of time.

as you point out, its just utterly fucking lazy journalism that makes me yawn and fire up my browser instead.

 

[josef k.]

But I also think that some people are resistant to any change and see the changes that the internet brings as definitely for the worse.

This is definitely right - I mean, it isn't really the kind of thing you could judge as "good" or "bad" since, well, the outcome I guess isn't clear yet. But I think its important to try and figure out what some of the emerging trends on the internet are, because some of these might be harmful, and some of them might be beneficial, and it would be useful to figure out which are which.

denby's view is completely at odds with the british sense of humour imo. dry and drier still, designed to puncture pomposity. the idea that this somehow prevents creativity is utter nonsense. yet another proponent of old media whining about their loss of mindshare.

Denby doesn't really mean this kind of humor, I think. He is more talking about the more mean-spirited, less rapier-like stuff, such as you sometimes come across on Gawker in its darker moments, or the board "b". i refer interested parties to this article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03trolls-t.html

Incidentally, as a side - as a New Yorker critic, Denby is relatively safe from the digital flood. The elite, specialist publications are generally okay - its the middle men like the newspapers who are being squeezed.

 

[nomadthethird]

I still don't get what it is though. Or at least what differentiates it from what I said before and how it is specific to the internet. Seems I'm not alone in being confused as well, I looked up the book on Amazon and this is from the first reader review:

If you want to know what snark is, it's basically defined by Gawker and blogs like that.

 

[Agent]

"What's snark, I thought it was just taking the piss in an unfriendly way?"

"Snark" is the thing that New Yorker film critic David Denby thinks is destroying our conversation, way of life, etc... He wrote a recent book on this theme. I haven't read the book, so can't comment on the validity of his thesis. But it is quite an interesting idea - the notion that a certain way of speaking, grown in the digital hothouse, can spread to epidemic proportions, and become a real menace.

i've never heard of this but it seems intuitively true. most advertising/media does have a cynical or smug tone to it. everything is automatically parodied, etc.

the internet raises the question of whether all social interaction is automatically mediated. it doesn't seem accurate to say the internet is real, or has anything to do with reality. it is a bad representation of reality on a different scale, and filtered through artificial code. but i agree that p2p networking is a form of social interaction, even if it is unnatural in a manner of speaking.

i think it's growing. maybe not learning but definitely growing, and getting more complex: http://books.google.com/books?id=lZcSpRJz0dgC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_summary_r&cad=0

 

[nomadthethird]

You can't cook, plant trees or make love on the internet.

Yet.

I suppose it's only us Media Studies students who have heard of teledildonics.

 

[bassnation]

Denby doesn't really mean this kind of humor, I think. He is more talking about the more mean-spirited, less rapier-like stuff, such as you sometimes come across on Gawker in its darker moments, or the board "b". i refer interested parties to this article:

conversely though, trolling can serve a purpose and it can be funny. not to defend /b/ whos actions were reprehensible - i'm thinking more of the saga with that guy from skins writing vacuous shite about his gap year travels in thailand and then getting savaged in a ludicrously over the top and very funny way on the guardian comment boards. that is a good example of pisstaking in a positive way - puncturing the bubble of moneyed-media people woefully out of touch with the world at large and the privileged their class and money gives them.

i've even trolled myself, sometimes playing devils advocate, sometimes just to highlight peoples credulousness or venality. so i'd still take issue with what denby has to say. it strikes me much as those laughable guardian articles from the likes of toynbee berating the people who contribute comments under her articles, and then committing the cardinal sin of not deeming to actually join the discussion - if you want to talk at people, don't be surprised when they turn nasty on you.

maybe this is all about shifting power.

 

[vimothy]

"nothing would ever be forgotten again".

And yet the internet also promises anonymity. It seems to me there is a crucial tension here between the promise of anonymity and the crush of memory (the past) and identity (the present). The issues of pretentious crap and trolling are probably closely related.

 

[vimothy]

denby's view is completely at odds with the british sense of humour imo. dry and drier still, designed to puncture pomposity. the idea that this somehow prevents creativity is utter nonsense. yet another proponent of old media whining about their loss of mindshare.

Agree re humour, but everyone is very opinionated on the internet, don't you think?

 

[bassnation]

Agree re humour, but everyone is very opinionated on the internet, don't you think?

people are opinionated full stop, the internet just gives them the means to broadcast it much more widely. whats so great about objectivity, unless your the BBC anyway?

 

[vimothy]

Not great, just different. It seems to me that the social costs of discord are less on the internet. If you're a dick to someone on the bus, for instance, you still have to sit there next to them, or try to get a different seat. On the internet, you just navigate to another page.

 

[vimothy]

not to defend /b/ whos actions were reprehensible

/b/ is mostly spam (occasionally pure id), in my limited experience, but ED is much crueller and much funnier.