How you engage with the world changes how you experience the world, and how the world experiences you.
A snarky and cynical approach, by its default assumption that things are shit, or if they are not yet shit will inevitably turn to; such an approach will give your world a malodorous brownish tint.
Granted, snark gives you plausible deniability, a motte-and-bailey that protects you from direct criticism, encountering backlash you can always backpedal and say it was just a joke that you accidentally took a bit too far.
If you are a man like Voltaire, endangering your life and position by taking on the establishment, then this strategy may indeed offer some protection. If, however, you are not a bold intellectual rogue at odds with the establishment, let’s be honest now, it is less likely to serve you, and its many drawbacks may instead cause great harm.
Snark distances you from other people, in part because the targets of your snark are by default under attack, but also to engage in any meaningful amount of snark, it is imperative to detach from the things you like.
Your real personality, your likes and actions, they are all vulnerabilities if they in any way resemble the myriad things that have been the targets of your caustic remarks, or if it turns out the thing you are attacking is a thing you expressed enjoyment of before.
The audience usually egging you on will offer little defense. It is just as enjoyable to watch as you are mounted on the pyre, as it was when you were roasting others yesterday.
Snark all but requires a guarded stance, one that slowly metastasizes into an ironic detachment from life itself, an insiduous form of lifestyle inauthenticity that will leave you a lonely wretch that can not truly enjoy anything.
What we say and what we think are profoundly linked. It is enough to pay lip-service to an idea for that idea to begin to subtly sprout in your mind, a staple brainwashing technique, that works also by muddling perceptions of public opinion.
There are few ideas more unfortunate to have planted in your mind than that you do not actually enjoy the things you do, because then all the things that are left for you to enjoy are by definition things you do not!
Ironic detachment is a slow poison that despite making everything a joke gradually strips you of joy and understanding of the self. It is the habit that is the real killer, not the individual cigarette, this is something that happens over years.
The cure is acceptance, sincerity, and enthusiasm. If you do enjoy something, let yourself, be open about it and tell the world!
You don’t even have to qualify your stance as “unironic” enjoyment, just call it enjoyment, and worry less about whether people around you will agree with the stance, and trust that it will attract people that do. These are people you stand a chance of connecting with, who see and appreciate the real you.
It is with irony, but not of ironic disposition, that this is a much better defense against criticism than snark and ironic detachment ever was. It is profoundly difficult to attack sincere enthusiasm in an impactful manner, and whoever tries only reveals themselves to be a spiteful little goblin that can’t stand to see other people happy.
Sincerity is not to be taken as an excuse for becoming an unfiltered and tactless boor, every thought does not need to be spoken out loud. The nuance is between filtering yourself to avoid social risk to yourself, and filtering yourself to avoid causing harm to others.