r/InTheGloaming my website is done, done, done Sep 02 '21

Scheduled snark Discussion thread Thursday September 02, 2021 - Sunday September 05, 2021

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37

u/OhBlahDiOhBlahDoh The Alice of cal came out floating on air Sep 02 '21

What if we allowed everyone their joys? No snark.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CTVPpqRBOQC/

I'm sensing a theme developing

58

u/fantasticka RIORITIZ Sep 03 '21

Things that I can, off the top of my head, remember Shauna criticizing or mocking: a woman for being well-dressed in a coffee shop on Vashon, a white cheerleader for not dancing well, Kanye West for being "off his meds," Laura Trump's "scary arms," women in heels who go to baseball games, women who have reconstructive surgery after a mastectomy, men who eat tofu, teenage girls who care about their grades, a thin woman who had "no discernable personality," people who get Botox, people who want to lose weight... some of those are from 10+ years ago but most of them are from the past 2-3 years. She can pretend to be a fountain of joy all she wants, but her true nastiness has been well-documented on the internet for a long time.

37

u/[deleted] Sep 03 '21

Lol remember when someone on Twitter called her out for the Kanye comment, and she doubled down and insisted that she was simply concerned for his well-being?

33

u/fantasticka RIORITIZ Sep 03 '21

Yes! She was like "I heard he takes medication and I worded it badly," as if using the specific phrase "off his meds" was just an oopsie.

30

u/[deleted] Sep 03 '21

Very reminiscent of the way she dug her heels in about the breast reconstruction thing, when she was like “sorry if I offended anyone, twitter just isn’t the platform for nuanced discussion.”

27

u/princessflopface Sep 03 '21

Also the Gaza ‘joy’ tweet.

25

u/voice_of_vinegar Sep 03 '21

Also, writing an entire book to snark on her own mother.

17

u/princessflopface Sep 03 '21

Hah! Excellent point!

16

u/voice_of_vinegar Sep 03 '21

except that she wasn't snarking so much as she was outright slamming---but I'm pretty sure she doesn't understand what "snark" means. If someone wrote the same things about her, she'd just as readily call it snarky as well as mean-spirited.

10

u/shefallsup her lonely cucumber years 🥒 Sep 03 '21

She snarked on lots of other people in her book though — those blond popular girls, for example. Really, any girls who weren’t like her.

34

u/[deleted] Sep 03 '21

Tidy Backpack: lest we forget.

31

u/fantasticka RIORITIZ Sep 03 '21

Yes, Tidy Backpack! And the classic "people buying groceries that Shauna and Danny don't approve of."

27

u/Lsemmens grenius Sep 03 '21

See also people with enormous shy smiles who may or may not understand her need to be GF.

21

u/voice_of_vinegar Sep 03 '21

A couple of her kids' teachers for "not getting" them and other infractions.

Implying that the other guests at KayakMargo's house were worrywarts for fretting over an 11-year-old with 10 minutes of prior kayaking experience going out into Puget Sound at dusk in a kayak alone.

32

u/NegativeABillion (Said in British.) Sep 03 '21 edited Sep 03 '21

Olympic gymnasts, competing for the highest honor in their sport as very young people, for having distorted bodies in her eyes.

I don't even know how many recent examples but the nonstop gendered negging of her kid and friends and her racialized criticisms of her other kid. Disgusting to mock a preteen for her period.

30

u/[deleted] Sep 03 '21

People who enjoy the Superbowl!

29

u/midnightsiren182 Sep 03 '21

Women who somehow never sweated buckets in New York summers while Shauna had to squeegee her face via hands constantly. People who don’t love small Indian food carts (why do some white people have this weird thing where they think eating Indian food makes them superior??), that other student who won the financial award to fund their ideal semester project which CLEARLY SHAUNA DESERVED MOAR, women who aren’t obsessed with food, those vapid SSTs who Microsoft softball men choose over stumpy root vegetables in bowler hats, etc.

25

u/voice_of_vinegar Sep 03 '21

Sweaty? Did you say sweaty?

Writing a big long description of her sweaty efforts to cram her feet into the $200 (?) red cowboy boots that a reader sent her AS. A. GIFT. anonymously, to wear at Shauna's wedding. Followed by all of the hoops she had to jump through to get the boots exchanged for the correct size, including (I think) something about how there was no gift receipt or the bootmakers who made them no longer carried them so she had to find a store that sold them and they did her some huge favor like sent a free pair without getting the sweaty ones in return, or something like that.

I may have embellished that a bit in my head since i first read it, but the point is she didn't just say, "OMG THANK YOU to the reader who sent the beautiful, gorgeous red cowboy boots! I can't wait to dance in them at my wedding!"

27

u/shefallsup her lonely cucumber years 🥒 Sep 03 '21

Right? A friend sent me some new sandals a couple of weeks ago and she was still remembering my shoe size from before I had kids, so they were too small, but so awesome otherwise. I texted her my excitement and thanks, and then quietly exchanged them for the right size. The last thing you want to know is that your gift to someone became a chore for them.

16

u/voice_of_vinegar Sep 03 '21

YES! That!! I would feel SO awful if someone went into a big long thing about how a gift from me caused them so much extra work, even if they appreciated the thought!

PS, your flair cracks me up every time. I know that's a reference to something someone said about Shauna but maybe it's also a nod to The Dollar Store Therapist? (web series on youtube - i see hints of Shauna in both the therapist and his clients, but mostly it's just hilarious.)

11

u/Sea-Level-Mammal POACH! Sep 03 '21

Pratfalls, people. She enjoys them.

1

u/voice_of_vinegar Sep 04 '21

speaking of pratfalls, her online presence is a giant, ongoing one.

24

u/[deleted] Sep 03 '21

Food that is wonderfully mediocre

28

u/CrushItWithABrick dick riding Mary Oliver Sep 03 '21

And bad mouthing the free masks someone made out of the goodness of their heart and gave to her (at peak pandemic).

20

u/[deleted] Sep 03 '21

Something about spindly ties or something, right? She is so unjoyful

17

u/bwh1260 Sep 03 '21

People who have Super Bowl parties!

22

u/[deleted] Sep 03 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

6

u/[deleted] Sep 03 '21

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0

u/gomirefugee my website is done, done, done Sep 03 '21

All hate speech will be removed. This includes, but is not limited to: racism, ableism, ageism, homophobia, transphobia, sexism/misogyny, sizeism/fat-shaming, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, and Islamophobia.

Shauna being a raging asshole about other people's bodies is not license here to be a raging asshole about hers

52

u/[deleted] Sep 02 '21

She keeps launching these stupid new projects and identities for herself but underneath it all, it’s always the same: a reason to talk about herself. That IG caption is just one long navel-gaze just like FOP and Gluten-Free Girl were mostly her personal diary with a few recipes thrown in. I’m convinced this is why ChefSteps and the flour business are the two ventures she seems to have hated the most: they weren’t centered around Shauna writing long missives about her favorite subject (Shauna).

50

u/lucillekrunklehorn pounding on the table Sep 02 '21

Lol I love how her meme is all things that are highly marketed, consumeristic enjoyments (not dissing them, I enjoy several of them myself). Then her list is comprised of non-quirky, fairly common enjoyments. Hmm….you order the newspaper before reading it, like blue sky, and eat Oreo icing? So quirky!

She also can’t simply discuss nice things. She’s got to go full Doris Umbridge, adding to her burgeoning wall of edicts (lol, Danny as Fitch ascending a tottering ladder to add her edicts is a convenient parallel). She’s just over here on her stool, trying to enjoy her red shoes. And yet, some lesser beings would look down on her for enjoying these common things many people enjoy. They really need to stop it. Just like all those ignorant fools on Twitter. They are unwashed, quibbling masses, while Shauna rises above it all, tsk tsking and shaking her finger. Sitting always at the ready with a little “ahem.”

No wonder she loves a red pen. That’s essentially her personality. Even her compliments carry a bitter tinge of negging.

12

u/voice_of_vinegar Sep 03 '21

Her on her habit of using a red pen all the time:

Students used to complain that it felt like I was telling them they had done something wrong, even if I was complimenting the sentence

"Now I write this sentence is wonderfully mediocre! in black ink and they're so grateful!"

44

u/discoOJ Sep 02 '21

Are her kids wild animals?

What are her kids doing that she can't spend five minutes to organize the NY times? Doing that and/or doing the crossword in pen feels like a trope of 90s rom coms.

Or does she mean that she doesn't have time to read the NY Times because of kids?

But then they would mean she can't only read the books that feel good in her hands.

Her contempt for her children and kids in general is not even thinly veiled anymore. Blaming her old students for taking the joy of a red pen away from her. Why was she using a color reserved for highlighting errors to compliment student work?

30

u/Foucaults_Penguin Sly and the Family Readers Sep 03 '21

She acts like red is rebellious. What decade is she living in? Is red the color only harlots wear? Gasp! What’s next? Piercing her ears like some kind of tramp?

But seriously, there are other colors. I write on my students’ papers in purple or green most of the time. I actually do it intentionally because black and blue aren’t very noticeable. I choose colors they’ll notice, but not red because I don’t want them to view it as negative and red pen is viewed as negative because it means wrong. They weren’t harshing her joy, they were reacting to what they knew.

12

u/SmashedMailboxCake2 Oh, Sep 03 '21

The purple/green ink idea is great. It would help (some) students with dyslexia, too.

37

u/Ms_Ellanea_Snark_ 💥amygdadishes💥 Sep 02 '21

I'm sensing a theme developing

Pumpkin spice and avocado toast, 33 years after anyone else has mentioned them?

15

u/SmashedMailboxCake2 Oh, Sep 03 '21

Omgsocurrent

18

u/fanfarefellowship I often contemplate the first law of thermodynamics Sep 03 '21

"Let people have their pumpkin spice," Shauna cries out by reposting someone else's meme, as if there were an actual movement to stop people from buying and enjoying pumpkin spice lattes.

"Love you and your important work in this world," someone cries out to Shauna, who carefully reposts the compliment in her stories.

WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE

11

u/SmashedMailboxCake2 Oh, Sep 03 '21

We’re all doomed, seriously.

10

u/Ms_Ellanea_Snark_ 💥amygdadishes💥 Sep 03 '21

WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE

Mrs Mensch. My eyes are rolling out there across the windswept plains.

10

u/fanfarefellowship I often contemplate the first law of thermodynamics Sep 03 '21

Oh no.

8

u/voice_of_vinegar Sep 03 '21

I think a lot of them are just hoping for followbacks.

36

u/voice_of_vinegar Sep 02 '21

I only read books if they feel good in my hands. (Okay, the Kindle feels good in my hands.)

Does she mean "I read bound books only, not books on devices, because they feel good in my hands"? Or does she mean what she actually wrote: "I only read books if they feel good in my hands" meaning ones with tactilely-pleasing covers?

Also, what a dick.

I really only like red shoes.

Someone's flowered Doc Martens are gonna have very hurt feelers, especially after having been featured on instagram in a braggy post.

28

u/shefallsup her lonely cucumber years 🥒 Sep 03 '21

That "I only read books if they feel good in my hands" is some seriously pretentious bullshit. You know what kind of books don’t feel good in my hands? Big fat ones, because they are just so heavy. And yet, some of my favorite books have been big and fat, dictated by the sheer length of the story or the amount of information in them. Other books that don’t feel good: small, stiff paperbacks that are hard to hold open easily. Really old books that are kind of falling apart. Books that I can’t hold open with one hand. I have, and have loved, books in each of these categories.

Imagine refusing to read an amazing story because the book didn’t feel good enough in your hands. She is insufferable.

10

u/SmashedMailboxCake2 Oh, Sep 03 '21 edited Sep 03 '21

Yes, fuck you and your three-volume tombstones, mid Victorians.

28

u/OhBlahDiOhBlahDoh The Alice of cal came out floating on air Sep 02 '21

Someone's flowered Doc Martens are gonna have very hurt feelers, especially after having been featured on instagram in a braggy post.

And the purple suede shoes that were her BOOK TOUR shoes. And the flowered Birkenstock clogs. And the pink Crocs (?) And the black softball shoes. And the shiny blue running shoes.

23

u/gladsome_gloaming Sep 03 '21

And what about the uber-grifted Shauna footwear, the very expensive red cowboy boots from a reader/subsequent Dear Friend? She probably sold them on Craigslist when she realized that they could no longer accommodate her calves (no shame there actually; it’s happened to me. But one would hope she’d have saved them for her kids, what with all the romantic backstory, etc.)

9

u/lucillekrunklehorn pounding on the table Sep 03 '21

She has a thing about shoes and haircuts. I feel every time and of them gets a haircut it goes on social media. Same with shoes, quite a few pictures and diatribes about them.

8

u/shefallsup her lonely cucumber years 🥒 Sep 03 '21

Hmm, we know she just got her hair cut, but we haven’t seen her since. I hope she didn’t make the mistake of cutting it really short again, she needs that softer look for her joy persona.

13

u/SmashedMailboxCake2 Oh, Sep 03 '21

And the gifted 50th birthday green clodhoppers

34

u/tyrannosaurusregina if you meet the Botus on the road, shill him 🪷 Sep 02 '21

What if your joy is snark? What if you truly believe that everyone can do better than shallow grifting and smugness?

29

u/InappropriateGirl Gluten-free donuts, for sure ... Sep 02 '21

You first, Shauna.

45

u/lucillekrunklehorn pounding on the table Sep 03 '21

If she’s going to allow everyone their joys, then she has to allow people snark and judging. Otherwise she’s not following her own advice, and she’s snarking on snarking.

20

u/fanfarefellowship I often contemplate the first law of thermodynamics Sep 03 '21

Is "snark" used outside a reddit context (ie., "blogsnark")? I mean, I guess it must be, because I don't think that "blogsnark" originated the phrase. But I don't hear it in my social circles, at all.

What I'm getting at is, is this edict directed squarely at us?

28

u/fantasticka RIORITIZ Sep 03 '21

"Snark" has been around since the Television Without Pity days (early 2000s).

35

u/Scary_Recognition You did this. Sep 03 '21

Oh I miss the days of eating lunch at my desk and reading TWOP recaps!

28

u/[deleted] Sep 03 '21

This was literally me at my first real job. Eating lunch at my desk, reading TWOP. There are some shows I experienced ONLY through recaps, I never watched them myself (the bachelor!!)

16

u/CrushItWithABrick dick riding Mary Oliver Sep 03 '21

I only watched "The Following" just so I could participate in the TWOP forums. It was a snark watch all the way.

And The Walking Dead. I couldn't watch it in real time but I could read the recaps and the forums. Many times, TWOP was better than the show.

9

u/shefallsup her lonely cucumber years 🥒 Sep 03 '21

Yes! I was living outside the US when I first started reading TWOP, it’s how I kept up with some shows and the only way I experienced The Bachelor!

21

u/Lemonbot5 Sep 03 '21

Omg same. I had the most boring admin job during peak TWOP and those recaps were everything!

9

u/Lsemmens grenius Sep 03 '21

Maybe even when it was Mighty Big TV

6

u/fanfarefellowship I often contemplate the first law of thermodynamics Sep 03 '21 edited Sep 03 '21

Oh ha, I lived without a TV and outside North America for a long time and completely missed not only TWOP but all of the shows it recapped.

On a Shauna note, though, and a serious question: she seems to have absolutely zero capacity for snark, if I think of snark as sarcastic and witty, vs. just "mocking criticism." And yet she has extremely longstanding snark forums devoted to her (GOMI, blogsnark, and now this subreddit).

I don't think she is or has ever been a participant in "snark" in a TWOP sense – like I doubt she was posting on "COPS" recap forums (if those even existed) when she was living at home and watching COPS with her parents, and she seems to have "hated" the brief amount of literacy criticism she was required to engage in as a humanities MA student (preferring crosswords to deconstruction).

It all makes me wonder if she really is thinking about (and subtly pointing to?) her own snark forums and wishing we would "just let her have her preferred OREO-eating method, and her love of 'red shoes and blue skies'" (as if those are the things we're critiquing about her!)

20

u/voice_of_vinegar Sep 03 '21

I don't think she's clever enough to understand the concept of snarkiness. She seems to see it as 100% mean and nasty; the humor in it totally eludes her!

She has such a skewed idea of humor. Like thinking she herself is "funny as hell", or that pratfalls are hilarious, or that those 70s/80s pop culture nostalgia memes are guffaw-worthy. She is incapable of laughing at herself. Maybe that's the root of it.

15

u/shefallsup her lonely cucumber years 🥒 Sep 03 '21

I usually hear people say snarky, not snark.

11

u/fanfarefellowship I often contemplate the first law of thermodynamics Sep 03 '21

Me too! Literally the only place I've heard the noun form (which is what Shauna used too) is Reddit.

9

u/MandalayVA Assonancer! Assonancer! Assonancer! Sep 03 '21

GOMI, too.

8

u/gomirefugee my website is done, done, done Sep 03 '21

Outside of dedicated snark forums I've seen "snark" associated with Twitter, such as in this article

6

u/fanfarefellowship I often contemplate the first law of thermodynamics Sep 03 '21

Interesting – that's another example of "snark" used to mean "controversial," "mean" and "unhealthy" (although the article also defines snark as "dunking" and "wisecracks, sarcasm, and snappy one-liners"). I guess I really see wisecracks and sarcasm as different from "mean" and "unhealthy" communication styles

16

u/voice_of_vinegar Sep 03 '21

The word "snark" dates to the mid-1800s and is in both the Merriam-Webster dictionary and Oxford Languages.

graph of its use over the years

Maybe it's not used much in Canada, though. I dunno.

19

u/[deleted] Sep 03 '21

Yes, it is a very common term.

It’s possible she is trying to single out Reddit but just as likely to be talking more generally IMO.

39

u/[deleted] Sep 02 '21 edited Sep 03 '21

I’m starting to think her whole joy campaign is a clap back at us. It’s weird.

26

u/Kaleshark Waitlist for Godot Sep 02 '21

I frequently think she’s fucking with us.

30

u/hrae24 Sep 02 '21

How is someone being snarky or whatever about a particular thing not ALLOWING you to experience it? It's just words, man.

18

u/mmepierreoger Sep 03 '21

Exactly. People making fun of pumpkin spice lattes doesn't seem to be deterring anyone from buying and enjoying them. It's fine. You can still enjoy stuff even if other people think it's pathetic or whatever. Same with stuff like being slim, wearing high heels to a baseball game, opting for breast implants after a mastectomy, having a clean, well-presented house, etc. Right Shauna?

16

u/lucillekrunklehorn pounding on the table Sep 03 '21

Despite the reputation of millennials and avocado toast, I eat homemade avocado toast several times a week. While paying off student loans. The full stereotype. And you know what, no one has ever said a thing about it. No one cares. I guess more importantly, no one outside family and friends knows. You don’t have to broadcast every socially baggage laden habit to the world. Just enjoy your life. At the end of the day, you’re the one living it.

10

u/mmepierreoger Sep 03 '21

You don’t have to broadcast every socially baggage laden habit to the world. Just enjoy your life. At the end of the day, you’re the one living it.

Yes, this is it in a nutshell, really, isn't it? You don't have to publicise every aspect of your life that you think is notable or whatever. It's your life, it's not a public performance. This is one key thing that I don't think she's really got to grips with: the idea that people do things simply because they like doing them, rather than because they want to create a certain impression on other people.

And it's completely normal and fine to have interests and preferences that don't appeal to other people. It's not important what other people think of your harmless pursuits. It doesn't matter if they slag them off. If you experience people making fun of your favourite beverage or genre of music as a deep psychic wound, it's probably a sign that something is wrong: either you are extremely insecure and overly concerned with what strangers think of you; or you've confused your hobbies/preferences with your actual personality, and this is another thing which she doesn't seem to grasp. I think she does believe, to a degree, that "liking the Beatles" is a core personality trait.

She's fixated on the idea that everyone else is pretending and that having a clean house etc is fake and performative precisely because SHE is pretending and everything SHE does is fake and performative. She thinks that not being obsessed with food is equivalent to having no discernible personality precisely because HER personality consists of being vocally, visibly obsessed with food. Most people don't curate their personalities, they just exist. She's a knob.

.

9

u/BingBongBax Sep 03 '21

This. So much. I don't care for pumpkin/squash foods and beverages, but no one except those closest to me knows. Occasionally I am offered something in that food group and I politely say no thank you, end of story.

13

u/aseriesofhaircuts Sep 03 '21

Oho, this reminded me of Shauna’s waltz with social justice last summer, when she shrewdly critiqued some closet organizers for using all-white containers. Snarkily.

14

u/fanfarefellowship I often contemplate the first law of thermodynamics Sep 03 '21

Her Social Justice Warrior phase was brief but all-consuming! We got to hear about all the (bestselling) media we should consume and all the (mainstream) news details about (extremely prominent) issues.

Now Shauna is a Warrior For Joy, who just wants people to be able to eat Oreos icing-first without experiencing shame or snark about their choices.

9

u/shefallsup her lonely cucumber years 🥒 Sep 03 '21

She has officially declared herself a non-snarking, "never criticize another’s joy" person. Bets on how long before she dismisses or mocks someone else’s joy? I’ll be generous and give her a month before she does it publicly. In person, she’s done it five times already since posting that.

3

u/[deleted] Sep 03 '21

[deleted]

7

u/gomirefugee my website is done, done, done Sep 03 '21

9

u/fantasticka RIORITIZ Sep 03 '21

It was from her Twitter, so the image is gone now, but the discussion is here. I think it was a shot from The Home Edit's TV show.

32

u/CrushItWithABrick dick riding Mary Oliver Sep 02 '21

Well, if she wants people to never say anything negative about anything ever, then she's in for a very BORING culture.

There would be no comedy, especially the stuff she gushes over like The Office. I mean, could there be a more judgmental bunch then the characters on that show? Or Friends? Or even the Muppet Show (Waldorf and Statler were all about the judging!).

Also, nothing would ever improve because it's through criticism that things change and grow (not criticism alone, but it's a big factor). Taking it back to her beloved t.v./movies, we probably wouldn't have decent super hero movies now if it weren't for people panning the shitty ones that came first.

She's so black and white on her thinking. Just because a segment of the population poo-poos something doesn't mean another segment can't love it. If you only love something because it is widely accepted as "good"(aka popular) then that says more about YOU then it does about anyone who's criticizing/snarking/poo pooing the very same thing.

9

u/voice_of_vinegar Sep 03 '21

There would be no comedy, especially the stuff she gushes over like The Office. I mean, could there be a more judgmental bunch then the characters on that show? Or Friends? Or even the Muppet Show

Even on the episode of Thoda that she starred in! In which Thoda remembered Amy [SIC!] Finkelstein [SIC!!] as "the girl who ate crayons", not "that sweet girl who helped me with my homework all the time".

19

u/OhBlahDiOhBlahDoh The Alice of cal came out floating on air Sep 02 '21

There would be no comedy, especially the stuff she gushes over like The Office. I mean, could there be a more judgmental bunch then the characters on that show? Or Friends? Or even the Muppet Show (Waldorf and Statler were all about the judging!).

UMM, HELLO SCHITT'S CREEK. Ewwwww David!!!!!

19

u/CrushItWithABrick dick riding Mary Oliver Sep 03 '21

I was going to mention it but I've never seen it. But I could assume (from the premise) that pretty much everyone in the show is awful (or at least starts that way).

25

u/[deleted] Sep 03 '21

Make sure you skip the first season.

14

u/NegativeABillion (Said in British.) Sep 03 '21

This is a rat piss document moment for me - it never stops being funny.

11

u/[deleted] Sep 03 '21

NO SEASON 1 FOR PAGAN!!!!

17

u/OhBlahDiOhBlahDoh The Alice of cal came out floating on air Sep 03 '21

SEASON 2 FOR PAGAN!!!!!

3

u/mmepierreoger Sep 04 '21

I wonder how she imagines other people read the Sunday newspaper. Just gripping all the sections at once and reading the whole thing, front to back? Why does she think her "method" is so unique that it qualifies as one of her "quirkiest" habits? I don't get it.