peterfeld: spiers: […] Also from [Doree...

peterfeld:

spiers:

[…] Also from [Doree Shafrir’s NY mag article on netiquette]:

Allison Mooney, vice president of emerging trends at media consulting firm Mobile Behavior, says that there’s also a generational divide at work. “I think Gen X is a very sarcastic generation, and sarcasm doesn’t really translate online,” she says. “Gen Y has grown up interacting with people online. They’ve developed different social skills, a different rapport. Being sort of dry, sarcastic, snarky — that’s not going to get you any friends online.” Making friends — whether that’s counted in the number of followers you have on Twitter or Tumblr, your Facebook friends, or how many people “like” something you write — has become the goal. “Social currency is only built around positive interactions,” says Mooney.

I know and like Alli Mooney, but I think she’s wrong here. Being “sort of dry, sarcastic, snarky”** has gotten me most of my friends online. Some of whom are also dry and snarky and happen to be her friends as well.

**Or dry and snarky, rather. I don’t like sarcasm. It’s a poor substitute for wit.

True, but you and most of that circle are Gen X (in sensibility, if not strictly by the calendar). Choire is Gen X. Gawker is Gen X (maybe not some of the newer ones writing it now, but it’s a Gen X sensibility). Twitter is Gen X. Tumblr (except for those of us in new media who use it) is much more Gen Y.

That said, I agree with Alli, she made similar points about the prosocial aspects of Gen Y’s embrace of Obama in a piece I did for Ad Age last year that quoted her. But David’s idea (in Doree’s article) that Tumblr has removed channels for negativity (or that no one wants negativity) is a laugh if you spend any time at all reading the site. Today I had a victory of sorts when I saw three posts in a row decrying a recent nasty argument on Tumblr and realized that I must not be following anyone involved since I had no idea what the big fight was about.

I agree that I’m Gen X (barely) but I don’t think there’s a generational split. Some of the most distinctive dry, snarky voices to crop up it the last few of years—Alex Pareene, Maggie Shnayerson, Foster, Sheila McClear, Moe Tkacik, Meagan Keane, half the writers at theAwl, etc—are Gen Y. I don’t think either generation has a distinct sensibility, re: dryness or snarkiness. I also don’t think negativity on the web is antisocial unless it’s gratuitous and doesn’t involve engagement. But the nasty arguments you were talking about are not antisocial. Quite the opposite. They’re a form of engagement (and by extension, sociability)—just not a feel-good one.

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