rant · moment 14 of 18
Snark Culture and Fake Creativity Online
from A Country of Laws · #61
Audio-only archive episode — no video to seek.
5 minTim goes on an extended rant about 'snark' as a hollow, unfunny form of moral posturing, arguing that people who write listicles and social media content aren't actually being creative, just regurgitating.
- 49:37People think they're giving something unique and important, but they're really just cognitive machines on an assembly line.
- 50:02Gawker published celebrity gossip that served no purpose except to dehumanize people, dressed up as altruism.
- 50:47The idea that everyone needs to dress up their work in altruism enrages Tim and makes people seem fake and disconnected from their actual motives.
- 51:12You can't conflate activism with your job; if you're making fifty or sixty grand, you're not an activist, you're just working.
- 51:38Real activists gave up lucrative careers to use their skills to fight for people, unlike privileged kids at Harvard posting vague political statements on Facebook.
- 52:18The left and the media don't understand that working-class people define themselves by their morals, not their careers.
- 53:20Elites like law professors get mystique from their job title, while someone who sells toilets gets nothing.
- 53:48Working people want to be more than their job because their job isn't great—they want a code and ethics instead.
- 54:11When celebrities like Katy Perry dressed as robots lecture working people, they're not serious and they hurt the cause.
GawkerSaturday Night LiveCharlie RoseNoam ChomskyGore VidalKaty Perry