memes @lemmy.world

2y ago

I have never seen ”/s” on lemmy

331 comments

/s is an excellent modifier for sarcasm. There's no tone in text and bold/italic can only do so much. And with how many absolute crackpots are posting all over the internet, I'd prefer to be sure to not lump in a jokester with the absolute nutjobs.
- Also helpful for people with trouble reading tone in text cuz of things like autism.
  
  It wouldn't be the first time I get myself into a trouble because of that :(
  
  Source: me
  
  ...and writing tone... for the same reasons. 😬
  
  That’s the only legitimate defense for having to tag your sarcasm I’ve ever read.
  Back in MY DAY, nobody tagged their sarcasm on BBS or IRC and we ALL UNDERSTOOD AAAAA (but srsly for folks who have trouble with tone you’re fully right.)
  
  As someone with autism, I’m here to say that it is actually the opposite of helpful.
  People need challenges in order to grow. They need opportunities to fail.
  Putting training wheels on sarcasm makes autistic people even further behind the social curve by depriving us of opportunities to fail.
  Much like a sterile childhood environment has been scientifically proven to be a causal factor in developing allergies as an adult, I predict that science will eventually establish a causal link between lack of ambiguous communication during developmental years, and reduced intelligence in life.
  Human society is so fucking hard to understand for an autistic person, and I really appreciate your looking out for me, but the struggle is worth it, and human culture is intricate and beautiful, and that’s why I chose this username.
- To me it's born out of this moment: "Wait, will someone see this joke and think I'm serious? If they did they'd think I'm a psycho..."
  
  That is exactly what Poe's Law is.
  
  People on Reddit are scared of downvotes affecting their karma score, so they have to tag controversial comments to make it absolutely clear if their comment is sarcasm.
  
  Am i wooshing myself??
  That is literally the point of sarcasm. People legitimately wanted to murder Jonathan Swift.
  If you write "/s", just write the direct unironic statement in the first place.
- That's the best part of internet sarcasm. There is little in this world that is more fun than a 6 reply deep argument between someone making serious counterpoints to my sarcastic comments, while I try to see how much more sarcastic I can become before they figure it out.
  Putting a tag up absolutely ruins the fun.
  
  I've found most people online feign sarcasm as a way to defend their ego more than anything else.
- /S Is aN ExCeLlEnT MoDiFiEr fOr sArCaSm. ThErE'S No tOnE In tExT AnD BoLd/iTaLiC CaN OnLy dO So mUcH. aNd wItH HoW MaNy aBsOlUtE CrAcKpOtS ArE PoStInG AlL OvEr tHe iNtErNeT, i'd pReFeR To bE SuRe tO NoT LuMp iN A JoKeStEr wItH ThE AbSoLuTe nUtJoBs.
  
  I definitely prefer /s over this style of sarcasm.
  
  I'd much rather "/s" than this. Though the difference may be small, this text reads as sardonic, while sarcasm may not always be meant in a mocking tone. Plus readability is important to me.
  
  tHiS is only useful for short phrases. Saying more than one sentence in this style makes me just skip the paragraph because it's annoying to read.
- But my false sense of entitlement!
- I lot of use of /s just indicates that there are a lot of jaded people making snide comments. We haven't gotten to that stage yet.
- iT Is tHE oNlY OpTiOn!
  
  It totes is. Obvs
- /s h
- Sarcasm doesn’t require tone to operate.
  
  Poe says otherwise.
- That's the whole point of sarcasm though, that the delivery seems genuine. Don't write the opposite of what you mean if you aren't willing to have some people misunderstand you.
  And yes, people who use sarcastic tone in conversation are also missing the point. They also should not say the opposite of what they mean.
  
  Sarcasm was developed in spoken word. If you are using the written word, it needs to be painfully obvious if you want the meaning to come across. But due to Poe's Law, that's becoming harder and harder these days. Especially in the political and human rights discussion.
  No one is forcing you to use /s. But shitting on people using it because you don't think it's "pure" is asinine and also abelism.
- Even with my username people still don't understand.

Well, we certainly didn't leave that signature sense of superiority behind.
- But I am superior
- Honestly, that's so much worse here... The atheist posts are making me cringe pretty hard. I'm am atheist, so that's saying something.
  It's like we got the best, and the worst, from Reddit.
  
  Or "for the sake of Lemmy, don't..." or something along those lines when you disagree with someone.
  Isn't proper discussion supposed to have disagreement? Was the point of Lemmy to create a centrist echo chamber? People should disagree sometimes, we have to be reminded to consider outside perspectives sometimes, even if we don't like that perspective.

People who need tone indicators aren't stupid
- Not at all -- it's the people who use /s that are dumb.
- Correct. They’re merely cognitively insufficient to successfully model the minds of the people they talk to.
  
  Neurodivergent people exist, and they deserve respect too.
  
  Good thing poes law doesn't exist forcing us to be more explicit about what is and isn't a joke.
  
  You tried too hard to sound smart here I think…
  
  "they're merely cognitively insufficient" fucking 🤓 nerdass, go back to reddit with these reddit-ass insults
  
  Is this a bot trynna be intensely human?
  
  Have you never heard of autism lmao

I've run into some pretty fucking stupid people here

I find /s helpful :(
- In a world where the most outlandish opinions are often genuine, it definitely helps to have a sarcasm indicator.
- I've been experimenting with the use of '⸮'. As all the best things in language, it allows me to show off my feeling of cultured superiority⸮
  (and requires a link to Wikipedia) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony_punctuation
  
  I can't find this key ANYWHERE ON MY KEYBOARD
- Autism gang?

"This website that I and others like me decided to migrate to is much better than the place I left. That must mean everyone who decided to come here is super smart!"
Don't get so full of yourself that you burst.
- I'm living proof that OP is wrong in that assumption, I'm an idiots idiot. I'm the moron morons hope to be. The character "I am Moron" was a toned down version of me.
  Did I mention I'm dumb? We find ourselves ending up everywhere, lemmy isn't safe from the stupids!
  :P

Not a chance, I've seen quite the share of dumbass takes on here.
- Yeah, I mean I made it here
  
  I'm gonna lick the frost of that metal pole! Beat that, Loyd!
- Of course I know him, he's me!

I’d much rather have /s than comments that start with, or just say:
This.
Absolutely annihilates my patience towards humanity.
- ☝️this /s
  
  why, you little...!
- This.
  
  This.
- It made more sense on forums and imageboards but how it became popular on a site with built in voting I'll never understand. Just people looking for attention and validation I guess.
- This is the way.
- Yes! This.
- I don't see any problem with comments that start with "this" and then expand on it. It's a synonym for "I concur," but doesn't sound snobby

This is some solid grade A pandering. You're aware there's no karma to farm, right?
- But your karma in life will catch up.
  
  I mean... No it won't. Like, we all know better at this point. We've all seen by how some of the worst people alive live.
  Comfortably. They live comfortably.

Maybe, but it seems all the people who think they are better than everyone else because they downloaded a different social media app made their way over here as well.
- We're all the same. Reddit did the same thing with Instagram.

Lemmy is definitely heavily skewing towards early-adopters. Doesn't mean there can't be dumb early-adopter tho.
- Feeling a bit called out right now.
  
  Congratulations on being personally calledout. You win this reply! /s

Im here though
- Me too.
  
  dum dum sounding off
- Our brains so smooth, we slip through the cracks.

No we have not.

Bashing denizens who decide to denote their sarcasm is as /stupid as bashing those who don't. "Oh no, now that the tone has been set the point is ruined!" Gosh, it must suck to be you, I'm genuinely sorry this is the way your brain works.
- It's not that the point is ruined. It's that it's no longer sarcasm. The whole point of sarcasm is that it seems like the message is genuine. Ironically, using /s makes a statement unsarcastic.
- Well no, because the /s tag isn’t symmetrical.
  In cases where the /s tag is used instead of sarcasm being interpreted successfully, there’s no mechanism to determine how well bonded and ready for complex communication a group is.
  It’s similar to banter, where one insults one’s friends in good fun. It’s a readiness test. The guy who gets insulted by your banter isn’t ready to communicate at a complex level with you.
  Same for people who can’t figure out when you’re being sarcastic.
  Misinterpretation of sarcasm is a canary in the coal mine, an indicator that complex topics aren’t going to be successfully discussed here, because there’s too much misinterpretation happening.
  
  Sarcasm is incredibly difficult to interpret over text unless you personally know the person doing it. That's highly unlikely on the Internet, and honestly it's just an easy thing to do to ensure people that have difficulty interpreting tone through text can be included. To me, bitching about tone indicators is like bitching over subtitles. It's not meant for you.
  
  oh well. Worse than stupidity, we have here a strayed pedantically breeded nonsensical being.

Nah, I still use it. You have to. The tone of voice is non existent. Sarcasm is indistinguishable from stupidity. It's impossible to tell and be right all the time without /s. It's just responsible posting to include it.
Without it, if your sarcastic enough often enough, you'll run into people who unironically agree with you on whatever you've sarcastically said. /s reminds those people who agree with whatever you've said that they are stupid.
- This. I'd say the main difference if OP is noticing it less is there are less scenarios being created for it to be applied naturally in conversations.
- How do you suppose every piece of literature to ever employ sarcasm got on without /s?
  
  They don't have to, since it's a one-way medium instead of a conversation. Even if they did get misinterpreted, how are they gonna find out? Some disgruntled reader mailing them a letter?
  
  They use more words, carefully constructed phrasing, and a better vocabulary.
  
  Readers know the author.
  
  They're usually longer than a comment on a thread. They're usually presented with the understanding that they're satirical or sarcastic.
- Poe's law applies.
- You don't have to do shit. If I'm gonna write a sarcastic comment, the joy is in knowing that some people will just think I'm a fucking moron. People who get it will relate. Others won't. The world will spin. I'm not writing sarcasm in a public broadcast built for mass audiences. It's a specific communication for a specific audience. If someone doesn't get it, tough shit for them...
  The real useful one is /gen when ppl need to know you're NOT joking.
  
  Agreed. I don't give a shit if people know I'm being sarcastic or not. If they can't figure it out, then the comment wasn't intended for them.
- Without it, if your sarcastic enough often enough, you’ll run into people who unironically agree with you on whatever you’ve sarcastically said.
  That's literally the point of sarcasm. If you don't want people to get confused, don't write the opposite of what you mean.
  
  I disagree. I'm not trying to trick people. I use it to illustrate the stupidity of opposing positions. It's rhetorical. It's not designed to get people who think I'm serious cheering me on, at least, not forever.
  Similar to parody, it's only funny if people are brought in on the joke. If Sasha Baron Cohen wasn't a well known comedian making a comedy movie, Borat wouldn't be funny and would fall flat on making any sort of point. It would just be like a documentary made by a pitiful idiot.

Yeah, all those stupid people who want to be kind to neurodivergents, understand that sarcasm is a tonal change which can't be read in text, or don't want their comments to give quarter to shitty people /s
Maybe don't call people stupid when all you're doing is whining about how language changes, a thing that languages do. It's kind of... telling on yourself, ya know?
- Whoosh

We have editable titles and I see far worse titles, title grammar, and title punctuation in here than on reddit. Do you really think there's no stupid here?
- Well, those are the only objective standards of intelligence, even accounting perfectly for things like youth and birth languages.
  Also you're just goddamn wrong.
  
  About what, exactly? I can't be the only one seeing almost 0 effort in post titles on lemmy. How hard can it be to just....edit your shitty titles once you spot a typo, at least? Also, I'm only giving examples of that sort because this stupid ass post is equating typing "/s" to stupidity. Seems only fair to reply with an example of similar levels.

Eternal September reaches every shore, sooner or later.
- And with all the big tech platforms enshittifying, were probably in the "August" before.
- TIL!
- Hey thanks for that wiki link...that was very interesting!
- It's happening here. I see far more squabbling and far more worthless posts than in early June when I first arrived. Sometimes I do a double take to make sure I didn't accidentally log on to Reddit, because the overall tone is definitely changing to be more Reddit-like.

No, there’s me
- I'm here as well
  
  You forgot your /s.

All? No way. Many? Sure. That big scary "Federation" thing slows them down.
- or it did before everyone told people to join .world

You've put "/s" on the post title. Now, you've seen it.

No, those people came over too. I posted something that I thought was very obvious satire and had someone think I was serious because I did not end it in "/s".
- With the enormity of our community it's really hard to judge by mere text if what we read online is serious or not. Since all of us here do not know each other personally, we do not have context on what the poster's disposition or their character is. Thus we cannot judge the text based on that. And of course what others might consider as unrealistic might be normal to other people's point of view. So I think it's okay to be on the side of caution and add /s just in case.
- I got banned from reddit because I declined to clarify whether something was sarcasm, because it was just too damned obvious.
- Happened to me too and it always disappoints me a little, but I figure if someone doesn't get something that is just blatant sarcasm, that's not on me.
  
  Omg me too! We must be the only ones here with superior intellect. High 5 all around for big throbbing brains

I've seen it.
On unrelated matter: are emojis allowed on lemmy?
- As long as it's not every 2-3 words or as cryptic as hieroglyphs, I think decent emoji usage can be acceptable. Like everything, moderation tastes best. 🍻
  
  Cheers mate! 🍺
  
  In the Beginning, there was the Word, and the Word was God.
  A-well-a everybody's heard about the 𓄿!
  𓅀 𓅁 𓅂, b-𓅃's the word
  A-well-a 𓅄 𓅅 𓅆, 𓅇 is the word
  A-well-a 𓅈 𓅉 𓅊, well-a 𓅋 is the word
  A-well-a 𓅌 𓅍 𓅎, b-𓅏's the word
  A-well-a 𓅐 𓅑 𓅒, well-a 𓅓 is the word
  A-well-a 𓅔, 𓅕, b-𓅖's the word
  A-well-a 𓅗 𓅘 𓅙, b-𓅚's the word
  A-well-a 𓅛 𓅜 𓅝, well-a 𓅞 is the word
  A-well-a 𓅟, 𓅠, b-𓅡's the word
  A-well-a don't you know, about the 𓅢?
  Well, everybody knows that the 𓅣 is the word!
  A-well-a 𓅤, 𓅥, b-𓅦's the 𓅧
  A-well-a
  A-well-a everybody's heard, about the 𓅨!
  𓅩 𓅪 𓅫, b-𓅬's the word
  A-well-a 𓅭 𓅮 𓅯, b-𓅰's the word
  A-well-a 𓅱 𓅲 𓅳, b-𓅴's the word
  A-well-a 𓅵, 𓅶, b-𓅷's the word
  A-well-a 𓅸, b-bird's the word
  A-well-a 𓅹, b-𓅺's the word
  (Side note: those aren't emoji, actual Ejyptian Heiroglyphs have a Unicode block, range U+13000..U+1342F.)
- 🤷
- Who cares? 🤷‍♀️ Screw the rules, use em anyway
- 💀💀💀

Thirteen years ago I saw this same meme but it wondered if we had left all the idiots behind at Digg.
- There is truth in the statement. Its failure exists in time.

/s
- Came to say this.

As an ex-Redditor I do /s reflexively because I assume someone will always be offended. Welcome to the Internet, I guess.
- fuck em, that's what i say.
  if they don't get it, sucks for them.
  other tone markers I'm more likely to do tbh (/gen). some people do struggle to get certain things, and tone markers can help move communication along.
  sarcasm is supposed to be a facade. you dont fkin mark it!
  
  I like the cut of your jib!
  
  Something I notice a lot in asian languages is that the asian languages I do speak (Thai and Mandarin) are more situation dependent than english. It would be the listener's fault to discern whether one is being truthful or sarcastic. I believe this is the other way around in most european languages. Bear in mind that this was something I learned many years ago, so feel free to correct me if I am wrong.
- Then just don't write the opposite of what you mean. It's not funny or witty or clever to write "Women should all just live in the kitchen, NOT."

This post is a good example of the "stupid people" on reddit
You're getting mad because people indicate their tone of voice with a tone tag
Tone tags have been in use on social media for a long time
https://tonetags.carrd.co/#e
- Sarcastic tone is stupid.
  
  Yes, and entirely unnecessary. It's pretty easy to pick up on sarcasm, even on the internet.

/s
- /s

Chances are that Lemmy has about the same makeup of people as Reddit, mostly. I'd say that where the difference lies is in the amount of tolerance they have for Reddit shenanigans.
Stupidity on the internet is amplified with resonance. One says something stupid, trolls or being rude, the other responds and the intelectual level of the discussion is plummeting. So my theory at least is that there's about the same percentage of "stupid". We just haven't yet reached critical mass.

Damn you just reminded me to keep using it /s

We are enlightened acorporal beings of pure thaougt living on this rarerified plane of dotworld. We need no hashtags to convey our multivariate meanings. Each word has 1000 facets that are immediately understood by fellow Lemmingtons. Truly we are blessed.
- Born too late to explore the world, too early for the galaxy, but just in time to read dank memes and chat with other nerds on Lemmy.
- I think it's lemmings not lemmingtons
  
  Or Lemmiacs. Though I can't take credit for that, it was ChatGPT.
  
  I like "lembos".
  
  Only enlightened acorporal lemmings are Lemmingtons, peasant

I find myself using it less on lemmy, but I think I have used it on occasion here, just to help to "distance" myself from whatever crazy shit I've commented. Ever since 2016, it's been a necessity when you can't rely on people to assume you're not as batshit crazy as what your comment reads as, which you really can't assume of anyone anymore. I've had plenty of times where I wrote a sarcastic comment in order to make fun of an idea, only to have people (who I'm pretty sure actually agreed with me) explicitly make the point that I was attempting to make through sarcasm, but they're attacking me because they think I'm an idiot (which is still possible).
- Satire is fucking dead.
  
  Satire is ~~dead~~ hard on a text only based medium.
  
  Satire is a necrophile.
- which you really can’t assume of anyone anymore.
  Actually you can. You can choose to trust, despite knowing the dangers of a thing. And it’s prosocial to do so.

No, we didn’t. Tons of Reddit trolls are here.
- wheres ur /s so i know ur not being real 😡
  
  I’m being real.
- I'm here, so there's at least one troll.
  
  hit me with your biggest troll
  NO /S FR FR

Not likely. I've seen people so politically corrupt they just refuse all sources as russian misinformation
- Sounds like something some lefty commie would say

It's weird, but I just don't feel the need to as it here. I just sorta assume everyone knows I'm pretty much always being sarcastic, ironic, or both.

For the most part yeah. I've gotten in some arguments here, and lemmygrad is pretty damn dumb, but the problematic people for the most part stay on their toxic instances that get defederated. They're isolating themselves for us which is nice.
For the more part, like 95% of the people here are cool and more understanding. I also like chill conversation on c/cafe (still figuring out how to link stuff on mobile lol).
This site is also pretty damn active now. I see front page posts getting 1k+ updoots now, which was far from the case before! Still have the issue of smaller communities getting buried and rare to pop up on the front page though. Reddit was much better about that in balancing small communties to show up more instead of being dominated by popular ones.
- !cafe@monyet.cc

Yes. /s

How else do you combat Poe's law
- By making people smarter and better acquainted with one another.
  When the society’s too big to know everyone, we rely on shared culture to know things about the people we’re talking to.
  Poe’s Law is a (cynical, defeatist, self-fulfilling) declaration that we have lost cultural cohesiveness as a society.
  We need to take risks in order to adapt and survive. And the risk that some internet stranger might miss your sarcasm in a comment is such a small risk it’s extremely bad news if we become so risk intolerant we won’t venture some unmarked sarcasm.
  The whole point of sarcasm is that it signals cooperation and cohesion between two minds. It’s like a handshake. Don’t underestimate culture just because it doesn’t seem to have a function.
  Sarcasm is like the appendix. Useless until we figure out what it’s useful for.
  
  Bro I'm just here for the memes
  
  What's stopping me from deploying sarcasm as a means of poor-faith social manipulation against those who believe that?
  I'd love it if everyone was educated with at least some core values to relate to, but we live in this current reality where a dumb-fuck can lure people to Romania by preying on similar social comforts.
  Trusting your fellow humans isn't inherently wrong, but people also believe Trump is going to jump-start the rapture. The /s is such a minor addition that costs me almost nothing to deploy and benefits everyone. The negatives to people responding to /s, like getting irrationally upset, are worth it compared to the negatives of assuming everyone has 'common sense', like the methodical social degradation from predators.
  
  So... make an echochamber and have everyone circlejerk each other...
  Look while it sounds bad, you really cant have many worthwhile discussions if you only talk to the people you agree with, (ie. Like minded individuals) you need to talk to people that dont agree with you and that means that is very likely they dont think like you and things like sarcasm can go over their heads and think you are being genuine while you are not. So i say stick wit the " /s" thing
- You don't write the opposite of what you mean. And Poe's law isn't a problem to be combatted, it's a gift.
  
  Oh so just don't use sarcasm ever. Wow why didn't I think of that?

/s' as my sarcasm is plural.

Let me test something.
69
- Nice.
  
  There we go, thats more like it.
- It looks like the zodiac symbol for cancer, rotated: ♋
  
  True.

Absolutely not, they're everywhere.

If you think there are no stupid people here, I've got some bad news for you...
(You might be one of the stupid ones)

Nope, I'm here.

Not exactly the purpose of the Philosoraptor meme but oh well. Depending on how you define "stupid", there are stupid people even in a small room full of MBAs.
- I would contend that there's nothing but stupid people in a small room full of MBAs.
  
  Probably a valid point

Oh, dear me, no. A lot of people got BANNED from reddit, many of them long before the great Fumbling of the APIs. Who do you think showed up to Lemmy first?

Haven't you seen that here? /s

Sorry guy, I've kinda adopted it for all platforms and some chats.
So not all the stupid got left behind.
But I promise, I'm not the "bad" stupid. Ish.
/s
- I may, or not, be the stupid. But I'll need fighting m guidelines and judgment to decide.

Nope, but everybody over here thinks of themselves as smart. Sometimes that's worse.

Do you read the comment sections on lemmy at all?
There is just as much stupid here as anywhere else on the internet.

One can hope.

I used it yesterday. Someone replied, pissed off, a nd clearly did not understand what it means.

331 comments