Online Sarcasm

Do you love zinging people with sarcastic remarks? Can you not get enough of the look on people's face as they are trying to figure out what you just said, because the art of sarcasm is lost on them? Do you want to do the same online (save seeing the look on their face of course)? Here is a quick tutorial on how to convey your sarcasm through electronic mediums.

Sarcasm in Emails

Work & Business

If you have the urge to be sarcastic in a business email, don't be! OK that was pretty simple.

Personal Emails & Instant Messages

This type of communication is generally must less formal, and on many occasions completely informal, so it is much safer to try work sarcasm into a personal email, without having to fully annotate it and entirely destroy the whole spontaneity of sarcasm.

Here are a few ways to make sure your sarcasm doesn't go unappreciated, or even worse, misunderstood, when you are working your magic on a piece of electronic communication (email, instant message, etc.):

The <sarcasm> Tag: If you are familiar with HTML, then you are aware of the variety of tags available which provide the coder with different functionalities which it provides for creating web pages. However, if you are not familiar with HTML, then just surround your sarcastic comment with the and (this indicates the end of a sarcastic comment) tag. Of course this particular method is best left to those who lack the mental dexterity to wrap their intellect around actual sarcasm.

Emoticons: by now almost everyone is familiar with emoticons. Even if you are not familiar with the term itself, you certainly will know what emoticons are once I provide an example. By simply using one of the following emoticons you'll be able to convey sarcasm. However, be forewarned that the chances of your emoticons successfully communicating your intentions are entirely dependant on the quality of your sardonicity, as well as the opposite party's ability to comprehend sarcasm.

See the side-panel for emoticons

Note: Another option would be to use the ubiquitous 'lol'.

Italics: Everyone uses italics in word documents for emphasis (and such) but did you know that italics can be an effective way of conveying sarcasm?

Be Cleverly Sarcastic: This final option requires titanic mental dexterity and intelligence, because you will be required to implement your sarcastic remarks in a way which will not require any additional 'aids' for the opposite party to understand. You will also be required to be able to correctly gauge the ability of the person you are communicating with to understand sarcasm.

If you think that this tutorial is missing anything, please drop me a line and I'll append this tutorial with your recommendations, should I find that what you suggest is actually valid.