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/s is an excellent modifier for sarcasm. There’s no tone in text and bold/italic can only do so much. And with how many absolute crackpots are posting all over the internet, I’d prefer to be sure to not lump in a jokester with the absolute nutjobs.
Also helpful for people with trouble reading tone in text cuz of things like autism.
It wouldn’t be the first time I get myself into a trouble because of that :(
Source: me
…and writing tone… for the same reasons. 😬
That’s the only legitimate defense for having to tag your sarcasm I’ve ever read.
Back in MY DAY, nobody tagged their sarcasm on BBS or IRC and we ALL UNDERSTOOD AAAAA (but srsly for folks who have trouble with tone you’re fully right.)
What are you talking about? Even usenet in the 80s recommended using emoticons to mark sarcasm/joking remarks.
Avoid sarcasm and facetious remarks.
Without the voice inflection and body language of personal communication these are easily misinterpreted. A sideways smile, :-), has become widely accepted on the net as an indication that “I’m only kidding”. If you submit a satiric item without this symbol, no matter how obvious the satire is to you, do not be surprised if people take it seriously.
This. I remember having a text file of emoticons back in the day because I couldn’t remember what they were supposed to mean (and often didn’t mean what I thought). :-/
That’s a valid point! I forgot now many emoticons I’d use back then. I’ve always hated pointing out my sarcasm using extra things, though… I prefer to do it using italics, which is reeeeal helpful on Reddit where it goes over nobody’s heads at all.
As someone with autism, I’m here to say that it is actually the opposite of helpful.
People need challenges in order to grow. They need opportunities to fail.
Putting training wheels on sarcasm makes autistic people even further behind the social curve by depriving us of opportunities to fail.
Much like a sterile childhood environment has been scientifically proven to be a causal factor in developing allergies as an adult, I predict that science will eventually establish a causal link between lack of ambiguous communication during developmental years, and reduced intelligence in life.
Human society is so fucking hard to understand for an autistic person, and I really appreciate your looking out for me, but the struggle is worth it, and human culture is intricate and beautiful, and that’s why I chose this username.
Okay but lots of other autistic people I know really appreciate tone indicators so you cannot really speak for everyone. Not to mention, why does knowing that something was meant to be sarcastic hinder learning instead of essentially guessing?
You misunderstand, this is from my own perspective as an autistic person. Plus, the lack of tone of voice over text can make communication harder, for everyone. It’s literally just a tool for communication, clearing up what you mean.
But that’s the point of sarcasm. Jonathan Swift got lots of death threats by mail after writing “A Modest Proposal,” and he expected it! If someone doesn’t want to risk being misunderstood, they should not write the opposite of what they mean.
How ever did autistic people survive before the internet to help them cope?
I mean a lot of neurodivergent people literally didn’t survive until a few decades ago
Well that’s a massively gross exaggeration.
To me it’s born out of this moment: “Wait, will someone see this joke and think I’m serious? If they did they’d think I’m a psycho…”
That is exactly what Poe’s Law is.
[…A]ny parodic or sarcastic expression of extreme views can be mistaken […as] sincere
People on Reddit are scared of downvotes affecting their karma score, so they have to tag controversial comments to make it absolutely clear if their comment is sarcasm.
I have used it because my sarcastic comment, read at face value, might encourage someone to support something I despise. I’m not interested in creating or bolstering that shit, I just want to make fun of it. Karma points never had anything to do with it. I had millions but what’s a million nothings, still nothing. Reddit Karma is just multiplying by zero.
Personally I used it to keep shinigami eyes users from tagging my then-universal handle as problematic when I made an off-color joke. I’ve been banned from subreddits I never heard of because of something I said as a joke in a totally different subreddit
Am i wooshing myself??
That is literally the point of sarcasm. People legitimately wanted to murder Jonathan Swift.
If you write “/s”, just write the direct unironic statement in the first place.
If that were holistically true the concept of a “sarcastic tone” wouldn’t exist in verbal speech.
Yes, the /s and sarcastic tone both exist and are used by people.
“If you want to tell a joke in which the humor is derived from you saying something incorrect, or something that would be offensive if you genuinely believed it, you should instead just say the actual truth and never use sarcasm again”
That’s actually such a good idea, it would make life on the internet so much better /s
If you want to make a joke, assume that some people won’t get it. If you don’t want any ambiguity then no, do not use sarcasm. If you write “/s”, you’re not being sarcastic at all, you’re just using a double negative.
That’s not what a double negative is
That’s the best part of internet sarcasm. There is little in this world that is more fun than a 6 reply deep argument between someone making serious counterpoints to my sarcastic comments, while I try to see how much more sarcastic I can become before they figure it out.
Putting a tag up absolutely ruins the fun.
I’ve found most people online feign sarcasm as a way to defend their ego more than anything else.
Or they imagine everyone is hating on them because they didn’t get the sarcasm. No, we got the sarcasm. It’s just a terrible joke.
/S Is aN ExCeLlEnT MoDiFiEr fOr sArCaSm. ThErE’S No tOnE In tExT AnD BoLd/iTaLiC CaN OnLy dO So mUcH. aNd wItH HoW MaNy aBsOlUtE CrAcKpOtS ArE PoStInG AlL OvEr tHe iNtErNeT, i’d pReFeR To bE SuRe tO NoT LuMp iN A JoKeStEr wItH ThE AbSoLuTe nUtJoBs.
I definitely prefer /s over this style of sarcasm.
I’d much rather “/s” than this. Though the difference may be small, this text reads as sardonic, while sarcasm may not always be meant in a mocking tone. Plus readability is important to me.
tHiS is only useful for short phrases. Saying more than one sentence in this style makes me just skip the paragraph because it’s annoying to read.
But my false sense of entitlement!
iT Is tHE oNlY OpTiOn!
It totes is. Obvs
Right? There’s literally no other way to make it clear that you’re being sarcastic
I lot of use of /s just indicates that there are a lot of jaded people making snide comments. We haven’t gotten to that stage yet.
/s h
Sarcasm doesn’t require tone to operate.
Poe says otherwise.
Declaring confusion to exist is a way of creating confusion.
That’s the whole point of sarcasm though, that the delivery seems genuine. Don’t write the opposite of what you mean if you aren’t willing to have some people misunderstand you.
And yes, people who use sarcastic tone in conversation are also missing the point. They also should not say the opposite of what they mean.
Sarcasm was developed in spoken word. If you are using the written word, it needs to be painfully obvious if you want the meaning to come across. But due to Poe’s Law, that’s becoming harder and harder these days. Especially in the political and human rights discussion.
No one is forcing you to use /s. But shitting on people using it because you don’t think it’s “pure” is asinine and also abelism.
Even with my username people still don’t understand.
Well, we certainly didn’t leave that signature sense of superiority behind.
But I am superior
Honestly, that’s so much worse here… The atheist posts are making me cringe pretty hard. I’m am atheist, so that’s saying something.
It’s like we got the best, and the worst, from Reddit.
Or “for the sake of Lemmy, don’t…” or something along those lines when you disagree with someone.
Isn’t proper discussion supposed to have disagreement? Was the point of Lemmy to create a centrist echo chamber? People should disagree sometimes, we have to be reminded to consider outside perspectives sometimes, even if we don’t like that perspective.
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People who need tone indicators aren’t stupid
Not at all – it’s the people who use /s that are dumb.
Correct. They’re merely cognitively insufficient to successfully model the minds of the people they talk to.
Neurodivergent people exist, and they deserve respect too.
Not only neurodivergent people need the “/s”. Not all subtle speech cues are easily transmitted through text.
Agreed
You shouldn’t need speech cues to simply not take anything seriously.
And it is not even only neurodivergent people where /s is helpful. You dont hear the tone of voice of people in the internet which is used to indicate sarcasm irl. I would rather use an /s than people misunderstanding what I wrote abd maybe them thinking I am some kind of conspiracy idiot
I’m a neurodivergent person, and I love sarcasm because I’m not a stupid neurodivergent person.
Good thing poes law doesn’t exist forcing us to be more explicit about what is and isn’t a joke.
Poe’s “Law” is a simple self-fulfilling declaration that communication has failed. It’s not even a postulate about the nature of reality. It’s a declaration that we give up.
To call something like that a “Law” is ridiculous.
Declaring that confusion exists is a way to create confusion.
Nice.
Nice originally meant stupid in English.
You tried too hard to sound smart here I think…
“they’re merely cognitively insufficient” fucking 🤓 nerdass, go back to reddit with these reddit-ass insults
Is this a bot trynna be intensely human?
Have you never heard of autism lmao
No, I lived 40 years on this planet and never heard of autism.
I am autistic, dork.
I’ve run into some pretty fucking stupid people here
I thought /s meant stupid?
/s
Sure you did
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I’m one of em
Oh, we’ve met before?
I find /s helpful :(
In a world where the most outlandish opinions are often genuine, it definitely helps to have a sarcasm indicator.
I’ve been experimenting with the use of ‘⸮’. As all the best things in language, it allows me to show off my feeling of cultured superiority⸮
(and requires a link to Wikipedia) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony_punctuation
I can’t find this key ANYWHERE ON MY KEYBOARD
One of these days I’m gonna get myself a space cadet keyboard so I’ll have enough Bucky bits to type this stuff on my desktop.
Until then, there’s always my phone’s on-screen keboard, I guess¿¡⸮‽
Autism gang?
“This website that I and others like me decided to migrate to is much better than the place I left. That must mean everyone who decided to come here is super smart!”
Don’t get so full of yourself that you burst.
Not a chance, I’ve seen quite the share of dumbass takes on here.
I’d much rather have /s than comments that start with, or just say:
This.
Absolutely annihilates my patience towards humanity.
☝️this /s
This.
This.
This. /s
That.
This
It made more sense on forums and imageboards but how it became popular on a site with built in voting I’ll never understand. Just people looking for attention and validation I guess.
This is the way.
Yes! This.
I don’t see any problem with comments that start with “this” and then expand on it. It’s a synonym for “I concur,” but doesn’t sound snobby
Maybe, but it seems all the people who think they are better than everyone else because they downloaded a different social media app made their way over here as well.
This is some solid grade A pandering. You’re aware there’s no karma to farm, right?
But your karma in life will catch up.
I mean… No it won’t. Like, we all know better at this point. We’ve all seen by how some of the worst people alive live.
Comfortably. They live comfortably.
Lemmy is definitely heavily skewing towards early-adopters. Doesn’t mean there can’t be dumb early-adopter tho.
Feeling a bit called out right now.
Congratulations on being personally calledout. You win this reply! /s
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Im here though
Me too.
dum dum sounding off
Our brains so smooth, we slip through the cracks.
Bashing denizens who decide to denote their sarcasm is as /stupid as bashing those who don’t. “Oh no, now that the tone has been set the point is ruined!” Gosh, it must suck to be you, I’m genuinely sorry this is the way your brain works.
It’s not that the point is ruined. It’s that it’s no longer sarcasm. The whole point of sarcasm is that it seems like the message is genuine. Ironically, using /s makes a statement unsarcastic.
Well no, because the /s tag isn’t symmetrical.
In cases where the /s tag is used instead of sarcasm being interpreted successfully, there’s no mechanism to determine how well bonded and ready for complex communication a group is.
It’s similar to banter, where one insults one’s friends in good fun. It’s a readiness test. The guy who gets insulted by your banter isn’t ready to communicate at a complex level with you.
Same for people who can’t figure out when you’re being sarcastic.
Misinterpretation of sarcasm is a canary in the coal mine, an indicator that complex topics aren’t going to be successfully discussed here, because there’s too much misinterpretation happening.
Sarcasm is incredibly difficult to interpret over text unless you personally know the person doing it. That’s highly unlikely on the Internet, and honestly it’s just an easy thing to do to ensure people that have difficulty interpreting tone through text can be included. To me, bitching about tone indicators is like bitching over subtitles. It’s not meant for you.
oh well. Worse than stupidity, we have here a strayed pedantically breeded nonsensical being.
No we have not.
Nah, I still use it. You have to. The tone of voice is non existent. Sarcasm is indistinguishable from stupidity. It’s impossible to tell and be right all the time without /s. It’s just responsible posting to include it.
Without it, if your sarcastic enough often enough, you’ll run into people who unironically agree with you on whatever you’ve sarcastically said. /s reminds those people who agree with whatever you’ve said that they are stupid.
This. I’d say the main difference if OP is noticing it less is there are less scenarios being created for it to be applied naturally in conversations.
How do you suppose every piece of literature to ever employ sarcasm got on without /s?
They don’t have to, since it’s a one-way medium instead of a conversation. Even if they did get misinterpreted, how are they gonna find out? Some disgruntled reader mailing them a letter?
They’re usually longer than a comment on a thread. They’re usually presented with the understanding that they’re satirical or sarcastic.
They use more words, carefully constructed phrasing, and a better vocabulary.
Gee whillikers, it’s almost like the medium isn’t the problem> 4
Readers know the author.
Poe’s law applies.
You don’t have to do shit. If I’m gonna write a sarcastic comment, the joy is in knowing that some people will just think I’m a fucking moron. People who get it will relate. Others won’t. The world will spin. I’m not writing sarcasm in a public broadcast built for mass audiences. It’s a specific communication for a specific audience. If someone doesn’t get it, tough shit for them…
The real useful one is /gen when ppl need to know you’re NOT joking.
Without it, if your sarcastic enough often enough, you’ll run into people who unironically agree with you on whatever you’ve sarcastically said.
That’s literally the point of sarcasm. If you don’t want people to get confused, don’t write the opposite of what you mean.
