snark Archives - I'm Not Doctor Who

Quite a few people I know have quit Twitter in the last year or so. A few of them have also come back again, and some have gone through this process more than once, but a few have gone, never to return, either. Fortunately, in the cases of people I’m actually interested in staying in touch with, I have alternative means of contacting them, and Twitter was only ever a way of easily sending short messages to them — a global texting service, if you will.

I use Twitter a lot, for engaging in conversations, posting links to my work and just generally being part of the global community. But over the past few weeks, I’m starting to understand why increasing numbers of people are jumping ship.

The experience is, of course, as with so much else on the Internet, exactly what you make of it, and I’ve taken fairly ruthless control of my experience by simply blocking people I find objectionable and/or annoying. Not necessarily people who are being abusive — I appear to be a relatively inoffensive tweeter that doesn’t attract trolls compared to some — but people whom I just don’t want to hear from. (If only real life were that simple.)

Even with doing this, though, it’s still increasingly frustrating when the entirety of my timeline is taken up by some sort of snark on one subject or another. Today, there were several subjects — a report by Edge about the next-generation Microsoft console which framed a bunch of rumours as if they were confirmed facts; the ECA announcing that HipHopGamer was going to be their new ambassador; and something about J. J. Abrams and Valve. I’ve only really dipped in and out of Twitter today, and the snark in relation to all of these things was unbearable then, so I can’t imagine how irritating it would have been had I had a client open all day.

This is the thing, though. There’s nothing really fundamentally wrong with having strong opinions on matters such as those mentioned above — which will, of course, mean nothing to people who don’t follow the games industry — but Twitter is not a particularly good place in which to have discussions about those opinions. It’s fine for raising awareness of something — perhaps posting a link to a relevant story — but when people start trying to have “debates” about these things, it all sort of starts to fall apart a bit, really. Any pretext of rational discussion is inclined to quickly go out of the window in favour of short, snappy arguments, and the ease with which a tweet can be posted means that things are often spoken in haste without any real thought. To me, the very benefit of arguing a point using the written word is that you can take your time over it and consider it carefully; not so if you’re in a Twitter argument.

I haven’t been involved in any of these discussions/debates/arguments as I know how they inevitably go. I also know the people to avoid engaging with by now — those who seem to take offense at everything it’s even slightly possible to take offense to. Even though I don’t engage with them, though — and in many cases, as mentioned above, have blocked them — it’s still exhausting to feel that there are certain subjects which just can’t be broached; certain turns of phrase which can’t be used; certain words which are off-limits. (And I’m not talking about anything explicitly offensive like racial epithets or anything like that; I’m talking about words which these people specifically choose to interpret using the worst possible meaning rather than the tone and context in which they were intended.)

I’m rambling a bit, I know, but the gist of the matter is that this week I’ve come closer to quitting Twitter altogether than I have ever done. Twitter has been an important part of my life for a long time, a key way in which I stay in touch with a lot of my international friends and the means through which I first met Andie, but I’m beginning to feel that “honeymoon” period is over. It doesn’t feel like the warm, welcoming, positive community it used to be. Perhaps that’s just the people I follow, and I’m long overdue for a ruthless unfollow-and-block session — or perhaps people really are being more snarky than they were. Either way, the negativity is starting to get to me a bit.

It’s doubtful that I will quit Twitter at any point in the near future — I still have too many friends who use it as their primary means of communication, and it’s still the best way to quickly and easily share things that probably don’t really need to be shared with the world — but I just found it mildly interesting that this is the closest I’ve ever come to actually ditching it.

I’ve kind of had it with snark. The whole “let’s piss on everything” parade that shows up any time something vaguely interesting or cool happens is getting really rather tiresome, and over the last few weeks and months I’ve actually been taking steps to minimise my exposure to it by simply unfollowing people on Twitter who prove to be irritants in this fashion. (British game journos, you don’t come off well in this poll, by the way, naming no specific names.)

Unfortunately, on a day like today, which held among other things the promise of a hotly-anticipated iPad-related announcement from Apple (which turned out to be “The New iPad” with its shiny retina display and quad-core processor… yum) it’s difficult to avoid said snark. It seems that for a lot of people nowadays that if something isn’t to your own personal preference, then no-one should enjoy it.

At this point I’ll say that I’m well aware I’ve been guilty of this in the past, and for that I apologise. (The X-Factor is still unquestionably shit, though. There is no valid argument in favour of a show that gave the world Jedward. I’m just not going to rant at length about the subject any more.) I am trying my best these days to see arguments from both sides, but unless you’re some sort of level 99 mediator, you’re always going to come down on one side or another. So long as you don’t force your views on others and expect everyone to agree with you, everyone should be free to do that. (Unless it’s about something dickish. I think we can pretty much universally agree that those who judge people based on skin colour or sexual orientation can all pretty much just bugger off and sit on a spike.)

I digress. I was talking about snark, and specifically relating to today’s Apple announcements. The new iPad is, by all accounts, a lovely-looking device, and the Retina display is sure to raise some eyebrows. As per usual for an Apple event, the company came out with its usual stuff about how it believed we were entering a “post-PC” era and about how people supposedly “preferred gaming on their iPad” to consoles and computers.

Contentious comments, for sure, but firstly, they’re marketing hyperbole — Apple announcements are press events, after all, and a company as big as Apple is never going to be humble about its achievements or lofty ambitions — and secondly, it might not be quite so unreasonable as you think. Already many households are making use of iPads for simple tasks such as browsing the Web, checking email, watching TV and movies, playing games, keeping themselves organised and all manner of other things. And the sheer number of people who have downloaded Angry Birds, whatever you may think of it (I hate it) should give you pause when considering the gaming-related comments.

But instead of thinking these points through rationally and considering the perspective that Apple might have been coming from, in it was with the snark about how wrong Apple was and how much bullshit they were talking. Up went the defensive walls, and a veritable barrage of snark was fired over the parapets towards anyone who dared to say “hmm, hang on, that’s actually quite interesting, and possibly plausible”. (I’m not saying their comments were true, rather that they deserved greater consideration than immediate outright dismissal.)

It only continued when, as usually happens in Apple announcement events, software started to be shown. The new versions of iMovie and GarageBand for iOS drew particular ire, with various Twitter users making acidic comments about how awful the music people makes with GarageBand supposedly is, and how terrible the “movie trailers” facility of iMovie is.

Once again, no consideration was given to the audiences that these features might be directed at. As a former employee of the Apple Store, let me assure you there is absolutely no love lost between me and the tech giant of Cupertino, so I have no “need” or contractual obligation to defend them — and also, a company the size of Apple certainly doesn’t need my defence either. But as a former employee, I know that Apple customers aren’t just high-falutin’ creative types, gadget freaks, tech snobs and people with more money than sense. I know that people who walk through the front door of that store range from very young to very old; from experienced computer user to complete beginner. I know that there’s a considerable proportion of that audience who came to Apple because of its products’ reputation of ease of use. I’ve even taught plenty of those people how to achieve simple tasks in products such as iMovie and GarageBand, and to see the looks on their faces when they realised that yes, they could be creative with their computers despite their lack of technological knowhow was, to use a word Apple itself is very fond of, magical.

As such, I feel it’s grossly unfair and downright blinkered for people (including professional commentators in some situations) to completely dismiss a considerable proportion of Apple’s audience and declare a feature to be “awful” or “crap” simply on the grounds that they don’t see the appeal, or think that its results are cheesy. (They are, but imagine if you had no idea how to edit a video and suddenly discovered you could put together a slick-looking movie trailer from your holiday footage and upload it to the Internet. You’d be pretty stoked, and you wouldn’t care that it was a bit cheesy. If you were inspired by this ease of use, you might even look into the subject further to find out how to take more control over the stuff you were creating.)

I’m using Apple as an example today since the announcement is still pretty fresh in everyone’s mind. But the presence of snark can be found pretty much any time something interesting is announced or discussed, especially in the tech or gaming industries. You can count on there being an unfunny hashtag pun game mocking the story within a matter of minutes; endlessly-retweeted “jokes” trying to look clever; and, of course, protracted slanging matches any time someone calls these people out on it.

And, you know, I’ve had enough. If you have a valid criticism of something, by all means share it and back up your point. But if you have nothing to say other than “I think this is crap, therefore everyone else should too” then kindly keep it to yourself. Because, frankly, your opinion isn’t anywhere near as important as you think it is.