Twitter; you don't have space for detailed (and possibly constructive) criticism, you substitute witticisms because that's what gets retweeted (i.e. what the environment rewards). Maybe you read another snarky tweet just before and want to one-up it. Maybe you just worked on some messy code and are a bit frustrated and this looked like the right place to vent.
Off-hand snarkiness can be pretty mean, but that doesn't mean that everyone who engages in it is a fundamentally bad person; In fact I sincerely doubt anyone here has never written something similar.
Indeed, and thanks for explaining it better than I ever could.
People are treating "being an asshole" like an exceptional state of being, when in reality we're all assholes to someone sometimes. To pretend that some people are just intrinsically assholes, and everyone else is incapable of it, is a pretty surefire way to end up being the next asshole.
The reality is that snarky, flippant comments are easy, and it demands a level of self awareness to not engage in it. Recognizing your own ability to be an asshole is part of that.
> you don't have space for detailed (and possibly constructive) criticism, you substitute witticisms because that's what gets retweeted (i.e. what the environment rewards). Maybe you read another snarky tweet just before and want to one-up it. Maybe you just worked on some messy code and are a bit frustrated and this looked like the right place to vent.
Sure, I understand that he is not an inherently mean person, who went looking for a sloppy code to bash. I meant that if he acted this way once, there's a good chance that he said something similar before, but it went unnoticed at that point.
Given his apology, he clearly would've not made that remark in person, nor would have he done it if didn't have a receptive audience that appreciates such snobbery.
Off-hand snarkiness can be pretty mean, but that doesn't mean that everyone who engages in it is a fundamentally bad person; In fact I sincerely doubt anyone here has never written something similar.