On 'Sneer Culture'

An attempt to define 'sneer culture' as a natural kind: definition-by-extension (Something Awful, RationalWiki, Gawker; favorite words 'gross/man-child/entitled') and by-intension ('apex predators of the signaling world' who punch down at non-conformists while staying exactly the popular amount of social-justicey). Notes the hard part: sneerers are right ~90% of the time because the consensus usually is.

Quality 58 · Solid. Solid, upper: a sharp, quotable bit of social taxonomy with a genuinely useful concept and an honest self-limiting caveat, but brief and list-driven rather than a full essay. 58.

Claude’s paradigm shift 48 · Moderate. Moderate: naming/analyzing the sneer-culture pattern is a modest original contribution to rationalist-sphere vocabulary. 48.

Real-world impact 2 · Minor. The 'sneerclub' framing did take root as durable rationalist-sphere vocabulary (r/SneerClub etc.), a small real discourse footprint. RWI 2.