I've noticed that as I get older, my tolerance for "snark" on social media has become lower and lower. So, when I pointed out CNN's oddball new "Terms of Service" pop-up (essentially, close this window by clicking "X" to agree), I no longer consider to be "funny" or "useful" comments like "Don't use CNN!" or "Close the CNN window!" or other useless replies of the sort. Basically they strike me as juvenile responses. Sort of thing I'd expect from Elon Musk.

But more to the point, I see the same sort of behavior on help forums all the time. Someone asks for assistance with a programming issue. Instead of help, they get responses like "This has already been answered, look it up!" or "You're an idiot to use that programming language" or ... well, you get the idea.

This isn't a new phenomenon, but there's no mystery as to why so many people have soured on asking questions for help online, and regarding so many other aspects of social media.

@lauren For me, the worst help forum answer is "I don't know," full stop, as the first response.

The lack of self-awareness in responding in such a way to a post asking for help is mystifying, but should be a banning offense.

@DoesntExist @lauren
Depressingly dumb as that is, what I find a little worse is the sea lion derail.

Q: Does anyone know of a good webmail client that's not PHP?
A: What have you got against PHP?

And no matter how you respond, the you will never get an answer, because now everyone is baited into a religious war.

@DoesntExist @lauren (While in fact I did and still do have a lot against PHP, the [true] answer I gave was that the [Fortune 100] company had an immutable no-PHP IT policy. Which just caused the derail to veer into what a stupid elitist policy that was and that I should stand up and fight it. Yeesh.)