Sarcasm

Sarcasm doesn't read too well, I've found. Not on the Internet anyway. Or rather, maybe I should say...

Sarcasm works so well on the Internet, it's absurd. I cannot tell you the number of times I've written something sarcastic and someone has read it and died laughing because it was obvious I wasn't being serious about it. People have a tremendous sense of this, and I don't think that body language, verbal cues, or the tone of one's voice is necessary to express sarcasm, because it's just so completely obvious when someone is doing it. Can't everyone tell? But then, I guess the people who can't should probably be elected President, or maybe even Lord-High God-Emperor of Earth because they aren't dumb enough to fall for sarcasm on the Internet.

It's an old joke to say, "In case you couldn't tell, I was being sarcastic," after you say something obviously sarcastic. Well, in case you couldn't tell, I was being sarcastic. And you might not have been able to tell.

Why? You're an idiot. No, just kidding, only a borderline pinhead. Actually, if you can't tell that someone is being sarcastic on the Internet, join the club. The response you'll usually get is that you're a retard for not knowing, but it's usually hard to tell. Sometimes it's because the person being sarcastic isn't over-the-top enough. But even then, a lot of times, the issue under discussion is so weighted that people with very radical viewpoints probably exist.

And where do they exist? That's right. The Internet. Because there are lots of people with lots of views on the Internet, what could be sarcasm could also be someone being completely serious. You never know, and since you don't have any auditory or visual cues, it's very hard to find out. Even on the telephone, I find that people don't cue in to sarcasm, and I often don't either. It's nothing to be ashamed of. I often don't get people's sarcasm when I'm standing right in front of them. I must be a Faulknerian man-child.

The best way to combat misunderstanding from the writer's side is to be as over-the-top as possible. Comedians know it, now you do too. The best way to combat misunderstanding from the reader's side is two-fold. One, find out what the author's views actually are (which is hard to do on the Internet, another reason why this is such a problem), and two, don't take anything you read too seriously.

Seriously, if you're prepared to get into a knock-down-drag-out fight with someone you've never met over something they wrote on the Internet, you need to simmer down. I know it's tempting to start flame wars or send insulting emails. I know that most of the time people are being serious and their points of view are crazy and/or stupid. I know all this. But unless you take them seriously, they can't truly be effective. If it's one comment they left on a message board about anime, you should probably let it slide.

If someone, Internet or not, is expressing views you find distasteful on a regular basis, then do something rational about it. Like tracking them down to their home and killing them with a rusty, dull knife of some kind, then ripping out their eyes for trophies and posing their corpses in embarrassing positions and taking pictures to send to their families. Then you should eat their hearts to gain their courage.

In case you couldn't tell, I was being sarcastic.