this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2023
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I’m old enough to have been an adult when the internet was first opened up to the general public. I remember guides to writing email that stressed that you should be careful using irony or sarcasm, that the tone was very difficult to convey. I don’t know what it could be, but there seems to be something about online communication that makes it next to impossible to use such devices.
It’s because sarcasm is usually indicated with vocal intonations, which is lost in text.
Sure, but for some reason there doesn't seem to be the same difficulty in print. I don't recall any warnings about the use of sarcasm or irony in style guides before the internet era, and no one seemed to feel the need for anything like "/s".
That’s a really good point. I would guess that this has to do with how the medium of the internet makes it more difficult to detect the author’s intent. Pre-internet, most writing was read from books, newspapers, and magazines. With each of these, the reader usually has a good idea of the author’s tone. Going in, the reader is usually familiar with the subject, and I’m guessing that longer texts give the reader more time and context to detect the tone.
This is all pretty different on the internet, where shorter, user-generated content (mostly written by people who aren’t amazing writers) reigns supreme. When reading comments in a thread or flipping through posts, the reader switches between different authors with their different tones much quicker than in earlier mediums. It makes sense that people would get tripped up more often.
That’s all just ideas, though. I’d love to see some scientific study on this kind of stuff.
"Oh sure, that's a great idea." he said sarcastically.
Lack of nonverbal queues/tone and lack of context. It's easier to convey sarcasm through text if you're chatting with someone you know well. But online, you're often talking to near strangers, and you don't know if they're the type to find this kind of thing hilarious among other beliefs.