this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2023
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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Isn't the whole point of sarcasm is to be hard to catch so it "wooshes" over people's heads? I never got the use of /s.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

No, the whole point of sarcasm is that it’s so easy to miss that it reinforces the (unspoken) real point you’re making.

With sarcasm, you’re deliberately making a statement that doesn’t make sense, in order to sort of say “You already know the answer to that, and to demonstrate it to you I’m going to give you the wrong answer and you’re going to know it’s the wrong answer”.

Like if someone says “Tomorrow we’re going to have a construction crew running a jackhammer all day in the hallway outside this office”, and someone responds with “Oh that oughta be helpful”, the real message is:

  • The jackhammer will NOT be helpful
  • I trust that everyone listening agrees with me
  • In order to demonstrate how much we’re in agreement, I will state the exact opposite
  • When you hear me state that opposite, your brain will reject it as nonsense

It’s a way to emphasize the unarguable truth of a statement: you say the opposite as a demonstration to the listener that they cannot take it at face value.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Kind of, but it only works when the audience knows that you are being sarcastic either by knowing you or some kind of context for them to know.

If your audience doesn't know you then it helps to be as absurd as possible.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Lol. The last part is the most important one. Thats a major point of being sarcastic. You need to be as absurd and ridiculous as possible

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

You need it to be sufficiently absurd to reject itself as what you’d be saying.

It reinforces the shared context between people too.