It’s incredibly difficult to tell sarcasm in writing because it is most often done in a different tone of voice or inflection. Pray tell, in what way does one convey tone of voice or inflection when writing?
I don’t even agree with your premise - Sarcasm is conveyed and deciphered primarily via context clues and tone and expectations set by the context juxtaposed with both the tone and content of the message.
The tone of voice is the spoken equivalent of the sitcom laugh track and is really only there to absolutely make sure everyone is on the same page.
I have absolutely zero trouble reading The Onion’s or Hard Drive Mag’s satire even without knowing that’s where it came from and understanding it as not being literal. I also have never seen sarcasm indicated with the /s tag outside of Reddit.
My coworkers frequently write sarcastically in casual chat at work and not once has anyone suffixed it with some tag, and I literally do not even know what they sound like at all.
Even on Reddit itself, that practice was only ever adopted as a way to keep out brigading/raids by bad-faith (often political) trolls who hide behind the veil of sarcasm. Same as the much more recent phenomenon of /uj and /rj tags being adopted on many circlejerk/parody subs
Over time the meaning probably got lost and ossified into “no one can understand sarcasm” or “no one can read”. I suggest you read more.
The fix is having a brain on behalf of the reader. Writing is the superior communication method.
It’s incredibly difficult to tell sarcasm in writing because it is most often done in a different tone of voice or inflection. Pray tell, in what way does one convey tone of voice or inflection when writing?
I don’t even agree with your premise - Sarcasm is conveyed and deciphered primarily via context clues and tone and expectations set by the context juxtaposed with both the tone and content of the message.
The tone of voice is the spoken equivalent of the sitcom laugh track and is really only there to absolutely make sure everyone is on the same page.
I have absolutely zero trouble reading The Onion’s or Hard Drive Mag’s satire even without knowing that’s where it came from and understanding it as not being literal. I also have never seen sarcasm indicated with the /s tag outside of Reddit.
My coworkers frequently write sarcastically in casual chat at work and not once has anyone suffixed it with some tag, and I literally do not even know what they sound like at all.
Even on Reddit itself, that practice was only ever adopted as a way to keep out brigading/raids by bad-faith (often political) trolls who hide behind the veil of sarcasm. Same as the much more recent phenomenon of /uj and /rj tags being adopted on many circlejerk/parody subs
Over time the meaning probably got lost and ossified into “no one can understand sarcasm” or “no one can read”. I suggest you read more.
Sarcasm and satire are similar but not the same thing.
Your coworkers, who you know, are different form random people on the internet who could, in fact, believe what they typed.