It’s a combination of factors. Language/cultural barriers are a big one. What is obviously sarcasm in your area of the world won’t necessarily make sense in another. Add in English as a second language, and it’s a crap shoot, even with an obvious joke.
The lack of tonal queues is also a problem. We communicate a lot via voice tone and body language. Without them, what is obvious to you can be read completely differently.
The last is the elephant in the room. Bigots dog whistling. I’ve seen too many “obviously sarcastic” jokes that are very much not sarcastic in a different group. When those people get called out, they fall back on “it’s just a joke”, the armour of arseholes the world over. By adding the /s preemptively, you rob them of cover to spread hate. It’s a variant of the nazi bar problem.
I have autism, so it really doesn’t matter how good your joke is, I will misunderstand it in fresh and novel ways.
/s is letting the audience know that it’s a joke. If you think that makes things unfunny, then comedy clubs must be awful for you. “Why is everyone laughing, it’s obvious he’s telling a joke, that ruins the whole joke. Don’t they know that ruins jokes? Jokes need to be secretive games where only clever people like me know they’re funny in order for it to be funny!”
Gonna preface this with: I completely understand your difficulty, I have several autistic people in my life and I know that it’s important to make reasonable accommodations to help make life easier. However conversely, a reasonable accommodation must not invalidate the initial reason for the accommodation in the first place. If the point is humour, it’s a hard sell to force someone to, from their point of view, remove the humour from the humour. You wouldn’t knock down a monument to install a lift to get to the top, sure the people with mobility issues can get to the top now, but the monument is no longer there to see.
Given that, an audience freely laughing at a joke is very different from a comedian demanding you laugh immediately after each joke, which would be a more direct comparison. The latter drains all humour from the situation, the former arguably elevates it.
Personally, if the point of a comment is to post something that I think is amusing, there’s no point in doing it if I have to compromise what constitutes the humour to me, otherwise I’d just be posting something unfunny, defeating the object of it entirely.
That and it’s the internet, we all have a better time if we go with the working assumption that the vast, vast majority of comments are entirely unserious.
Man, infantilizing, condescending, and missing my entire point. Real hat trick, ya got there.
Thinking /s is telling people to laugh at your joke or a demand that they view it as funny is entirely on you and has nothing to do with the tag. The tag is there so that there isn’t confusion about what you’re saying. People telling others to use the tag usually comes from them being massively misunderstood and then saying “I was being sarcastic”.
“But that ruins the joke for me”. Question, do you deliver all of your sarcasm straight? Never use a tone when saying something sarcastic? Cause that is a thing, but it really only works if the audience knows who you are. The humor coming either from juxtaposing the idea against your nature, or from people knowing that most of the stuff coming out of your mouth is sarcastic. Most of the rest of the time, people use vocal tone to indicate their sarcasm. The tag is a stand-in for the tone. If the tone doesn’t ruin the joke, then the tag doesn’t either.
we all have a better time if we go with the assumption that the vast, vast majority of comments are entirely unserious
No joke, that’s how 4chan brought the nazis back. Chucklefucks thought it was hilarious to talk like nazis, and they made a safe space for nazis by doing so. Not everything is serious, but you don’t know where others are at in their lives. How does clarifying where you stand detriment anyone?
And in Ireland and UK, we’re all a sarcastic bunch. It’s “a you problem” if the person can’t get sarcasm. I refuse to add /s for the rest of the serious world!
No, you’re shy, condescending dickheads who don’t know how to be direct with what you’re saying, so you learned to tie yourself into knots in order to get your point across. Congrats! Your humor is entirely the product of your repressed culture! Woohoo?
“If people don’t get my humor, that’s on them” is really not a winning point. If you’re not being understood, that’s gonna affect you way more than other people.
Sarcasm is very reliant on tone, which can’t be conveyed via text. Intensifiers like “totally” or “definitely” can help, but there are so many horrible people out there now that Poe’s Law can make it hard to tell what the true intent is. “/s” has value.
No
“/s” is the equivalent of ending a quip with a “haha geddit? haha”
If it’s not clear you’re joking or being sarcastic, perhaps the line isn’t very good in the first place
It’s a combination of factors. Language/cultural barriers are a big one. What is obviously sarcasm in your area of the world won’t necessarily make sense in another. Add in English as a second language, and it’s a crap shoot, even with an obvious joke.
The lack of tonal queues is also a problem. We communicate a lot via voice tone and body language. Without them, what is obvious to you can be read completely differently.
The last is the elephant in the room. Bigots dog whistling. I’ve seen too many “obviously sarcastic” jokes that are very much not sarcastic in a different group. When those people get called out, they fall back on “it’s just a joke”, the armour of arseholes the world over. By adding the /s preemptively, you rob them of cover to spread hate. It’s a variant of the nazi bar problem.
You underestimate the reading comprehension abilities of the average human
Then that’s on them. I’m not going to compromise the humor in something just to reach the lowest common denominator
I have autism, so it really doesn’t matter how good your joke is, I will misunderstand it in fresh and novel ways.
/s is letting the audience know that it’s a joke. If you think that makes things unfunny, then comedy clubs must be awful for you. “Why is everyone laughing, it’s obvious he’s telling a joke, that ruins the whole joke. Don’t they know that ruins jokes? Jokes need to be secretive games where only clever people like me know they’re funny in order for it to be funny!”
I like when a portion of readers don’t get my sarcasm and downvote. It makes it funnier to me. Not like half, but a 6:1 ratio is perfect.
Gonna preface this with: I completely understand your difficulty, I have several autistic people in my life and I know that it’s important to make reasonable accommodations to help make life easier. However conversely, a reasonable accommodation must not invalidate the initial reason for the accommodation in the first place. If the point is humour, it’s a hard sell to force someone to, from their point of view, remove the humour from the humour. You wouldn’t knock down a monument to install a lift to get to the top, sure the people with mobility issues can get to the top now, but the monument is no longer there to see.
Given that, an audience freely laughing at a joke is very different from a comedian demanding you laugh immediately after each joke, which would be a more direct comparison. The latter drains all humour from the situation, the former arguably elevates it.
Personally, if the point of a comment is to post something that I think is amusing, there’s no point in doing it if I have to compromise what constitutes the humour to me, otherwise I’d just be posting something unfunny, defeating the object of it entirely.
That and it’s the internet, we all have a better time if we go with the working assumption that the vast, vast majority of comments are entirely unserious.
Man, infantilizing, condescending, and missing my entire point. Real hat trick, ya got there.
Thinking /s is telling people to laugh at your joke or a demand that they view it as funny is entirely on you and has nothing to do with the tag. The tag is there so that there isn’t confusion about what you’re saying. People telling others to use the tag usually comes from them being massively misunderstood and then saying “I was being sarcastic”.
“But that ruins the joke for me”. Question, do you deliver all of your sarcasm straight? Never use a tone when saying something sarcastic? Cause that is a thing, but it really only works if the audience knows who you are. The humor coming either from juxtaposing the idea against your nature, or from people knowing that most of the stuff coming out of your mouth is sarcastic. Most of the rest of the time, people use vocal tone to indicate their sarcasm. The tag is a stand-in for the tone. If the tone doesn’t ruin the joke, then the tag doesn’t either.
No joke, that’s how 4chan brought the nazis back. Chucklefucks thought it was hilarious to talk like nazis, and they made a safe space for nazis by doing so. Not everything is serious, but you don’t know where others are at in their lives. How does clarifying where you stand detriment anyone?
And in Ireland and UK, we’re all a sarcastic bunch. It’s “a you problem” if the person can’t get sarcasm. I refuse to add /s for the rest of the serious world!
No, you’re shy, condescending dickheads who don’t know how to be direct with what you’re saying, so you learned to tie yourself into knots in order to get your point across. Congrats! Your humor is entirely the product of your repressed culture! Woohoo?
“If people don’t get my humor, that’s on them” is really not a winning point. If you’re not being understood, that’s gonna affect you way more than other people.
As if many comments on the internet are not sarcastic!
Another environment of shyness, condescension, and repressed emotions. Not really doing much for your argument, mate
No totally not, no.
Maybe that’s just how a lot of people are
I choose to believe that there’s a strong correlation between being a downvoter and being an unimaginative, humorless bore.
Sarcasm is very reliant on tone, which can’t be conveyed via text. Intensifiers like “totally” or “definitely” can help, but there are so many horrible people out there now that Poe’s Law can make it hard to tell what the true intent is. “/s” has value.