/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.
Source: me
...and writing tone... for the same reasons. 😬
It wouldn't be the first time I get myself into a trouble because of that :(
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..."
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.
Well, we certainly didn't leave that signature sense of superiority behind.
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.
Nope, I'm here.
People who need tone indicators aren't stupid
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.
I’m a neurodivergent person, and I love sarcasm because I’m not a stupid neurodivergent person.
Not only neurodivergent people need the "/s". Not all subtle speech cues are easily transmitted through text.
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
Not at all -- it's the people who use /s that are dumb.
"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.
If you think there are no stupid people here, I've got some bad news for you...
(You might be one of the stupid ones)
I've run into some pretty fucking stupid people here
I thought /s meant stupid?
/s
o7
Nope, but everybody over here thinks of themselves as smart. Sometimes that's worse.
I find /s helpful :(
This is some solid grade A pandering. You're aware there's no karma to farm, right?
I’d much rather have /s than comments that start with, or just say:
This.
Absolutely annihilates my patience towards humanity.
☝️this /s
As an ex-Redditor I do /s reflexively because I assume someone will always be offended. Welcome to the Internet, I guess.
fuck em, that's what i say.
if they don't get it, sucks for them.
other tone markers I'm more likely to do tbh (/gen). some people do struggle to get certain things, and tone markers can help move communication along.
sarcasm is supposed to be a facade. you dont fkin mark it!
Then just don't write the opposite of what you mean. It's not funny or witty or clever to write "Women should all just live in the kitchen, NOT."
No, we didn’t. Tons of Reddit trolls are here.
wheres ur /s so i know ur not being real 😡
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.
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