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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…”
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
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
/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 try to read.
Sarcasm doesn’t require tone to operate.
Poe says otherwise.
Declaring confusion to exist is a way of creating confusion.
iT Is tHE oNlY OpTiOn!
/s h
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.
Even with my username people still don’t understand.
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.
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.
I sternly believe that of all things on the internet, the one time you’re actually allowed to feel superior and bully someone else is when they refuse to take a screenshot of a PC game and instead post a phone picture and then defend themselves calling it ‘easier that way’.
One of those people recently even killed off several Dota 2 custom games, in a weird domino effect that literally started from them refusing to learn. They are acceptable targets, bullying them is justified, because they are stupid and you are superior.
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.
You tried too hard to sound smart here I think…
“they’re merely cognitively insufficient” fucking 🤓 nerdass
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
<s>
Fixed that for you</s>
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?
Not a chance, I’ve seen quite the share of dumbass takes on here.
Yeah, I mean I made it here
I’m gonna lick the frost of that metal pole! Beat that, Loyd!
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.
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.
We’re all the same. Reddit did the same thing with Instagram.
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.
oh well. Worse than stupidity, we have here a strayed pedantically breeded nonsensical being.
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
Im here though
Me too.
dum dum sounding off
Our brains so smooth, we slip through the cracks.
We have editable titles and I see far worse titles, title grammar, and title punctuation in here than on reddit. Do you really think there’s no stupid here?
Well, those are the only objective standards of intelligence, even accounting perfectly for things like youth and birth languages.
Also you’re just goddamn wrong.
Yeah, all those stupid people who want to be kind to neurodivergents, understand that sarcasm is a tonal change which can’t be read in text, or don’t want their comments to give quarter to shitty people /s
Maybe don’t call people stupid when all you’re doing is whining about how language changes, a thing that languages do. It’s kind of… telling on yourself, ya know?
Whoosh
No, there’s me
I’m here as well
You forgot your /s.
Eternal September reaches every shore, sooner or later.
And with all the big tech platforms enshittifying, were probably in the “August” before.
TIL!
Hey thanks for that wiki link…that was very interesting!
It’s happening here. I see far more squabbling and far more worthless posts than in early June when I first arrived. Sometimes I do a double take to make sure I didn’t accidentally log on to Reddit, because the overall tone is definitely changing to be more Reddit-like.
