June 24, 2005

The Hunting of the Snark

Is criticism too "snarky" these days? Or is everybody too nice? Those age-old questions have been revived and batted around by a certain art-focused segment of the blogosphere recently.

I think it began with Neal Pollack's New York Times account of his "break-up" with Dave Eggers. Or rather, it began with Eggers's lengthy "small correction" to that piece. (Read the Pollack piece, at minimum: it's funny.) Anyway, Eggers envisions a literary environment that is caring, encouraging, and mutually supportive all around. Which is a nice thought, but also kind of a dippy one, as some have been unable to resist pointing out, and in a manner that really isn't all that caring, encouraging, or mutually supportive.

These people have a point: earnestness in search of niceness is funny, irritating, and often quite lame. A common target of such criticism is the literary journal The Believer and its surrounding culture, described as "the literary equivalent of Up with People" in this article about Nick Hornby, and embodied in this famous manifesto contra crabby reviews. (The current Believer is the music issue, which includes a CD of artists covering each other's songs. That strikes some as obscenely smarmy and mutually-supportive - I guess if this is your first encounter with the covers comp. concept, it might seem that way.) As this New York Times piece points out, the blog The Shins Will Change Your Life, a collection of excerpted gushing music "criticism" presented without comment, is a kind of antidote.

The creeping niceness infects not only the critics, but those they criticize. Everyone has joined forces in a dippy, soppy, mutually-supportive mess. Except for a few bold critics of the critics who aren't afraid to stand up and be counted. They've never met anyone, they'll tell you, who didn't understand a slap across the mouth or a slug from a 45. Matthew Wilder ties it all together, denouncing the "new male infantilism" exemplified by Conor Oberst, Jonathon Safran Foer, and Wes Anderson. Everyone is a "Smurf Boy" these days. Where have all the tough guys gone?

Now, the hard-drinking, bar-brawling, womanizing, cigar-chomping, tough son of a bitch novelist is just as much a cliché as the supposedly-neo sensitive-artist figures caricatured here. And earnest nostalgia for an imaginary world populated primarily by these guys is funny in its own right. It's pretty common, too. There's always someone who will, for the sake of contrariness or as a cry for help, dismiss the year's entire book list as too effete and express the fervent wish that Norman Mailer would just come over and slap everyone around. "Don't make me come down there," they imagine Hemingway saying from his heavenly, rough and tumble cloud. You all better watch out, they say. Hemingway's coming. And when he does, he's gonna cut you.

It's the same way with music. The frail, bespectacled free-lance writer who once sold a piece to Rolling Stone and now works for the local alt-weekly can be seen down at the club, cowering in the corner and madly scribbling in his notepad: "where's the threat? where's the danger? Rock and roll is supposed to be about fucking and fighting. Fucking and fighting! Fucking and fighting! Its center of gravity is located in the hips, not the brain. It's the siren song of the switchblade, the muscle car, hard drugs, and paternity suits, not some weeping adolescent's bedroom. Where is this band's third leg? Oh, God, I hate myself..." Similarly, rock writers in Britain want you to be "American," or you don't compute: and by "American," they mean a kind of cave man. It's a dreamy fantasy.

As for whether criticism is too nice or snarky, it depends on whose ox is gored. An over-the-top hit piece can be enjoyable in its own right if it's done skillfully enough, even if you like the thing being trashed. But as a rule: if you like the target, you get irritated, and if you don't like the target, you say "hear hear" and forward it to your friends list and post the link on your blog.

And if you are the target? Well, you pretend to be a good sport about it. And then you put this critic on your personal enemies list and fantasize constantly about his or her destruction. And you never forget. Years later they call your publicist and ask to be on the list for a show, at which they try to pal around with you like you're old friends who've been through a lot together. Most of them don't seem all that concerned with keeping an eye on their drink just in case someone might put something in it when they're not looking. Which is mystifying.

Anyway, when it comes to criticism of the criticism, poisoning someone's drink is, perhaps, a bit over the top. Understatement and irony are far better, which is why The Shins Will Change Your Life is the perfect criticism criticism. Read the whole thing and laugh heartily. Because someone, somewhere, is laughing at you.

(cross-posted at Suicide Girls.)

Posted by Dr. Frank at June 24, 2005 06:01 PM | TrackBack
Comments

"Hemingway's coming. And when he does, he's gonna cut you."

i swear i've seen that on a shirt from the hemingway fest in key west. if not, it should be.

i've never fully understood most criticism, as it seems to be more about the critic and less about the item in question. it's as if the critic wants to be famous in their own right and is relegated to writing about other people's work. then again, that's just another stereotype about critics.

Posted by: kendra at June 24, 2005 06:12 PM

I just hate reading that crap because they always have to use so many ridiculous adjectives for whatever they're revieweing. I don't care if someone thinks an album is charismatic and mysterious or how intricate and bright the music is. It does nothing more for me than if someone wrote a review that said, "This album kicks ass." At least with a review like that I can buy the album and have my own descriptions and feelings about it instead of having to waste time reading long winded crap.

Speaking of long winded crap, I'm done.

Posted by: Amy 80 at June 24, 2005 06:39 PM

Nice criticism of criticism criticism.

And I just wrote a fucking CRITICISM OF CRITICSIM CRITICISM CRITICISM!!!!

Any thoughts?

Posted by: josh at June 24, 2005 07:29 PM

Criticsim is a funny word

Posted by: Andy at June 24, 2005 08:29 PM

One of my favorite writers (now deceased) said towards the end of his life that the only novels he read now were mystery novels, and that he'd probably never finish another novel again that didn't start with the words "a shot rang out." When I try to read Foer or Eggers or Pollack, I know exactly what he means.

Posted by: Mikes at June 24, 2005 10:45 PM

This is true. They are too many critics, tv/radio personalities, bloggers that don't say what they really think about celebrities/artists/writers anymore. I'm tired of that. When I can, I post stuff in the blog, or print it in the zine, about how I don't get glowing praises surrounding these buzz artists. I didn't think "Fortress of Solitude" was a work of genius, and I got flamed for giving The terrible new Goldfinger album [very formerly a favorite band of mine] a bad review, tearing into each song. Writing bad reviews don't make me better, just a little more honest than others who rave about things they get paid to rave about.


Posted by: Megan at June 25, 2005 12:50 AM

Hear hear!

Posted by: Wes at June 25, 2005 01:02 AM

"And earnest nostalgia for an imaginary world populated primarily by these guys...."

"*Ernest* nostalgia" perhaps? Nice pun.

Posted by: sheckie at June 25, 2005 02:31 AM

It seems as if the only people who can really say what they think and get away with it or janitors who own their own blogs. If people listen to your view-point you're supposed to buckle under when conservatives snarl.

Posted by: steve otto at June 26, 2005 05:22 AM

I've always thought that if something is worth supporting, then support it, and if it's not, then don't. Seems like common sense to me, but back in the Lubbock, Texas punk scene circa late 1990s people called me an asshole because I didn't have the stomach to sit through some shit indie rock outfit that practiced (maybe) twice, then rolled out of bed one morning and decided that they'd go play a gig. If you like that stuff, you go ahead, but don't act like there’s something wrong with me because I won’t plop down five bucks, waste a night of my life, and stand around pretending to enjoy somebody’s music for no other reason than that it simply exists.

On the other hand, I like Dave Eggers' writing and a lot of that McSweeney's stuff, and I don't like very much "genre fiction," as it's called. I don't think I deserve to be called a snob or an idiot for that. There's a line between criticizing the art and criticizing those who might appreciate it that I don’t think needs to be crossed in the name of more sincere criticism.

Posted by: Chris Fabulous at June 27, 2005 10:40 AM

Forget snarky, thanks to the free wide access and faceless of the internet people it has become downright mean, rude and crude. Make a venture over to http://www.aintitcoolnews.com (a movie site) and just take a read through some of the reviews from their reviewers and the "talkback" section from the readers. The net has become a playground for kids to be vulgar without the need for being outdoors and using swingsets and teeter-totters.

Posted by: Zaphod at June 27, 2005 04:00 PM