Joy is Greater than Snark

From time to time, things on social media pop up in a few places…Twitter, TikTok, Instagram. “Viral” as they’d say. And one particular video kept crossing my feeds over the weekend, giving a snarky response to a question that someone posed.

Funny at the first viewing, something didn’t sit right with me, and a few watches later, I realized what was bugging me.

The humor was based in sarcasm.

Sarcasm. “To tear flesh” or “strip the skin” if we go back to the Greek word, sarkasmos.

It’s biting, sarcasm. It snarks. It cuts. It passive aggressively barks. And it is, quite frankly, a lazy form of rhetoric and humor.

And, I think perhaps un-Christlike.

Jesus was quite clear in what he would say, what he would do. And, if he was perhaps coy or vague with his words, he was never biting or sarcastic with them.

And so I’ve been pondering this idea, that sarcasm is not the way we’re called to share the Gospel, but rather, with the expression of joy - the sharing of something that is life giving, a witness to the good, a delightfulness in the Truth.

I won’t share the video that bugged me…don’t want it to get too many more views. But, I would encourage you to read this great article from 2014 about the “bite” of sarcasm, and ponder the ways you can maybe root it out in your own life.

Today’s Guest

Alex Dee from the “Saints Alive Podcast” tells us the story of how they began to create radio theater for Catholic kids. Check them out here.