Sarcasm

Overview

Sarcasm is a figure of speech where the surface meaning differs from what's really meant. Saying "How wonderful" while actually criticizing is typical sarcasm. Face to face, tone of voice, facial expressions, and context show that it's sarcasm, but in text these clues are lost. Understanding sarcasm is said to involve "theory of mind" (the ability to infer other people's intentions) and to take a lot of mental effort.

Why sarcasm is dangerous in a question box

Since question box exchanges happen in text only, sarcasm is hard to get across. When an answer says "Impressive as always," it's hard for the reader to tell whether it's sincere praise or sarcasm.

Even if the writer means it sarcastically, the reader may take it at face value. On the flip side, sincere praise sometimes gets mistaken for sarcasm. Either way, the two people end up talking past each other. In an anonymous question box especially, you don't know the other person's personality or how they usually talk, so there's even less to go on when judging whether something is sarcastic.

When to avoid sarcasm

In a question box, it's safer not to use sarcasm as a rule. Sarcasm that would get a laugh face to face can look like an attack in text. Especially when you use sarcasm in an answer to a sender, the sender may take it as "they're making fun of me."

If you really want to use sarcasm, you need some way to make it clear that it's sarcasm: add a note like "(just kidding)," use emoji to fill in the tone, or make the joke clear from the surrounding context. But if it needs a note, the sarcasm has already failed to land. Saying what you mean directly saves you the detour.