"Oleaginous spiked on March 8th, after the word was used by New York Times columnist David Brooks, in reference to Senator Ted Cruz."

Says the Merriam-Webster Dictionary website.

Brooks is not the only writer who has seen fit to employ this adjective when describing the senator from Texas; a fair number of other pundits have decided that Cruz merits this less-than-flattering descriptor....

Oleaginous came to the English language in the 15th century from Latin via the Middle French. For several hundred years the word simply had such meanings as "resembling or having the properties of oil" and "containing or producing oil." In the early 19th century it began to be used in a figurative sense, to refer to people or things that were perhaps a little too slick....

"Oleaginous"? It's a big word, suitable for elite-media prose, where — when a man makes you think about oiliness — you can't just write something blatant and easy-to-understand like "greaseball":

usually offensive
:  a person of Hispanic or Mediterranean descent

"The defining feature of kitsch is that it preys on our desire to feel art succeed."

"It follows the formula of meaningful expression and exploits our willingness to manufacture the sensation of meaning. How wonderful, after all, to see a painting and be moved. As a species of contemporary kitsch, sarcasm takes advantage of our readiness to respond to actual wit. It, too, is mechanical and proceeds by formula. And online sarcasm is now industrially produced, thanks to the mass quantities of content that digital media must churn out each day. The style of Internet writing often called snark participates in sarcasm, typically by adopting the derisive tone of satire without the complex irony."

Writes Dan Brooks in a NYT article, "Banksy and the Problem With Sarcastic Art." You may not want any help deciding what to think about Banksy's "Dismaland," but, midway through, the discussion becomes "Sarcasm is our kitsch" and the problem with internet sarcasm — the derisive tone of satire without the complex irony.

Brooks gives an example from Wonkette: “George Kornec and Phil Nappo have a mining claim on federal land; they’ve put up a garage and a fence, and the dastardly government is pushing its weight around and being a big bully and being really terrible and stuff by telling Kornec and Nappo to take them down.” Writing like is completely lazy, leaning on the assumption that the reader will already agree that Kornec and Nappo are bad and the government's good.

There’s no insight here to raise this irony to the level of satire. There is only mockery, backed by certainty that the reader shares the author’s contempt. Sarcasm is a natural fit for partisan news aggregators, because it relies on a calculated appeal to shared attitudes.

Kitsch banks heavily on these shared attitudes. It substitutes them for artistic insights, and it relies on its audience’s agreement with them to produce a feeling similar to profundity. Sarcasm works best when people already know what you mean.

As I read Brooks's observations, I'm thinking that the problem is that people are now finding comfort in sarcasm. But sarcasm should feel bad. It should heighten your awareness of what's not right. Now, what can make you aware of what's wrong with low-quality sarcasm? You need to feel revulsion for the sarcasm, not short-cut into the contempt that the sarcasm nudges you to feel.