While I definitely get that it’s becoming harder to distinguish sarcasm from the truly insane, I think he sufficiently crossed the chasm of doubt by implying Ghana should continue to be the dumping ground for the West and again when he equated the value of a Ghanaian child’s life to a phone.
People who actually believe that stuff try to hide it a little better. For now.
Agreed, but let’s not pretend r/fuckthes has a point in it being dumb and unnecessary.
Using it removes even the slightest room for misinterpretation. That is always a good thing.
But the point of sarcasm is to be an undertone, using /s makes it a strong overtone to the point you may as well just say “I’m being sarcastic” after you finish.
It’s about as bad as explaining a joke, which is not a good thing.
Right, but isn’t that something we effectively do anyway, with tone of voice and body language?
And if someone doesn’t pick up on our sarcasm in person, do we just let them go on thinking we believe something we actually don’t?
No. We do go “I was being sarcastic” and then they burst out laughing and go “oh damn, you got me for a second there haha”.
We announce our sarcasm in a variety of ways regardless of the setting. The point of making it unmissable online, is that if you don’t, there will be fraction of people who walk away having misinterpreted what you were saying. In person we can make sure that doesn’t happen, online in a public forum, not so much.
And since when is explaining a joke to someone who doesn’t get it, a bad thing? Are you seriously arguing that ruining the joke (whether it is even ruined in the first place is debatable, imo) is too much to trade in for helping people understand?
