A trope where one or more characters become progressively snarkier from their experiences over the course of the story. It may usually come as a result of things like having Seen It All or gone through so many crazy events that it becomes something of a coping mechanism. It may also happen to a character through Adaptational Personality Change or Adaptational Jerkass if the level occurs in a different adaptation or reboot.
May overlap with Took a Level in Jerkass and/or Took a Level in Cynic. See also Snark Ball for when a character says something uncharacteristically snarky, but it's only for that one line. Might also become a World of Snark if every single character becomes snarky. Compare this trope to Dumbass No More where, despite similar names, this one involves a character becoming snarkier while Dumbass No More involves a character becoming smarter, or at least, less dumb than they used to be.
Examples:
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Comic Books
- Deadpool: In his first appearance, Deadpool was stoic and serious. He slowly developed into the snarky "Merc with a Mouth" over time.
- Spider-Man: Gwen Stacy in the comics was known for frequently shifting in personality, but she was never really much of a snarker in the same way Peter's other iconic love interests Mary-Jane Watson and Felicia Hardy are known for. Modern adaptations such as Ultimate Spider-Man, The Spectacular Spider-Man and The Amazing Spider-Man give her more of a humorous and sarcastic side to varying degrees.
Comic Strips
- Get Fuzzy: Early on in the strip's history, Satchel was very sweet but gullible, and also a constant victim of the Jerkass cat Bucky's antics. But in the years that have since followed, while he still is arguably one of the nicest amongst the three protagonists, he's also noticeably become much snarkier and is no longer always the guaranteed pushover against Bucky that he used to be.
Fan Works
- Boldores And Boomsticks: Whisper began as an optimistic little kid whose most prominent character trait was her Big Sister Worship of Weiss. After evolving into Kirlia and learning she doesn't need to copy Weiss in every way, she gets mouthier and more sarcastic. This omake
by the author showing her future personality as a Gardevoir takes it even further, having her essentially be a heroic version of Abridged Perfect Cell.
- Pretty much everyone in the Calvinverse takes one from the original strip. And the original strip was already pretty snarky.
- Ma Fille: Coinciding with Took a Level in Jerkass, Claire was a playful Cheerful Child who never said anything rude in early chapters. However, as of "Late Bus", she is revealed to have become a flippant Little Miss Snarker in the sixth grade. She snarks about the fact that Joe's probably worried about his daughter Katrina getting lost. This ends up being one of the reasons Katrina decides to stop being friends with her.
Film-Animation
- Finding Nemo: In the first film, Nemo was a typical Nice Guy and Cheerful Child. However, the sequel gives him a bit of a sarcastic streak, which is mainly aimed at his father.
- Violet Parr of The Incredibles starts out as a very shy and quiet girl, but gains more confidence and becomes more outgoing over the course of the movie. In Incredibles 2, we see that her sense of confidence also came with a very strong sense of sardonic wit.
- Turning Red: Mei gets distinctly snarkier after she begins to embrace her wilder side. Eventually she even starts snarking at her beloved mother Ming. Her entire dialogue when she's trying to keep her mom in the ritual circle by "gyrating" is full-on snark.
Film-Live-Action
- In the original Spider-Man Trilogy, Peter was known for not being as quippy as he was in the comics. By the time of his adventure into the MCU during Spider-Man: No Way Home, his Deadpan Snarker aspects are much more pronounced, making him more talkative and prone to sarcasm.
Live-Action TV
- Abed Nadir of Community becomes quite the Cuckoosnarker over the course of the series.
- Homicide: Life on the Street: Bayliss starts out as a strait-laced, serious rookie who sticks out like a sore thumb against his more relaxed colleagues. In Season 3, he's mostly been accepted into the unit and he's thus mellowed out quite a bit, becoming much more snarky and jokey.
- Oz: Beecher starts out as a Shrinking Violet who almost never insults anyone. After being put through a hellish Trauma Conga Line over the course of his incarceration and going insane as a result, Beecher becomes increasingly sarcastic on top of taking levels in badass and Jerkass.
Video Games
- Banjo-Tooie: Banjo winds up becoming a lot more snarky than he was in the previous game, likely due to having Seen It All and from hanging around Kazooie all the time.
- Persona 5: Akechi is known as the 'Detective Prince' on TV for being a detective with a charming, polite personality, and lives up to the title outside of media appearances. However, it's eventually revealed to be a sham and he's really a disturbed and deranged young man. In Royal, seeing no reason to keep holding back, Akechi drops the act and becomes snappish and sarcastic, no longer concealing his real opinions.
Visual Novels
- Kisses And Curses: As Anastasia becomes closer to the heroine, who is a habitual snarker, she starts to show an occasional snarky side herself.
Web Animation
- Homestar Runner: Strong Sad started out as a more passive character, either standing around and making depressing comments or stoically suffering while he got tormented by Strong Mad and Strong Bad. His Character Blog "Strong Sad's Lament" and later cartoons showed him having a more sarcastic and snarky side, cracking jokes at the expense of other characters when they did something especially weird or imbecilic.
- Red vs. Blue: At the beginning of the series, Lopez was an overly dramatic and serious robot who showed Undying Loyalty to the Reds. However, after getting possessed by Church and injured by the Reds, who thought he was still an enemy at that time, realizing how insane his "father" Sarge is, and temporarily working for O'Malley, Lopez becomes a lot more snarky throughout the rest of the series, constantly making sarcastic remarks since nobody can understand him anyway.
Web Originals
- In Brig Scarlet Flamingo, Joseph Avery starts off as a quiet, polite child, and even after getting bullied for several months and learning to repay every insult with Good Old Fisticuffs, he never uses verbal jibes himself and talks with his Only Friend from the orphanage gently. However, then he gets adopted by pirates. Thirty-four years later, he rarely utters a phrase without sarcasm, and vicious Snark-to-Snark Combat is the way he and his best friend prefer to treat each other.
Western Animation
- Alvin and the Chipmunks: Simon, being the Only Sane Man to the impulsive Alvin and the naive Theodore, became snarkier as time went on in the '80s series, and it has since become one of his defining traits in the franchise.
- The Amazing World of Gumball: Gumball Watterson was an energetic Cheerful Child in early episodes, but as of Season 2, he becomes more cynical and dabbles in Cats Are Snarkers quite frequently.
- In Animaniacs, Skippy Squirrel starts out an innocent Cheerful Child who looks up to his aunt Slappy. As the series progressed, he gained a little bit of a snarky edge and proved to be just as good as Slappy at dealing out cartoon mischief.
- Lofty from Bob the Builder was a Lovable Coward in the 1998 series. In the 2015 reboot, his personality undergoes a complete overhaul. In addition to being more confident and hardly scared of anything, he has a bit of a rude and sarcastic edge to him. Whenever Scoop or Muck mess up a project, Lofty is usually the one who questions them or says it's not a good idea.
- Kenny the Shark: In season 1, Kat is very motherly towards Kenny. In season 2, while still caring and protective of her pet shark, she's also much more likely to make snarky comments or respond to him with deadpan sarcasm.
- In The Dreamstone, the heroes were usually consistently idealistic, with only the villains providing any sarcastic or cynical humour to the situation. By the final season, however, the main heroes, Rufus and Amberley, developed a more quirky sarcastic side, and show a similar self-awareness as Frizz and Nug towards the more egregious parts of the plot. Downplayed in that they're still very upbeat and good-natured, but have their limits.
- South Park: Parodied in "Sarcastaball", where every character in the show takes a level in this, to the point that Randy can't say anything without making it sound like a snide remark.
