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The good people at the Michigan-based company Sarcasm, Inc. have invented something called the sarc mark, a punctuation mark that indicates sarcasm in written correspondence. For only $1.99, you can download the sarc mark and use it in your emails, text messages and Facebook status updates, so that people will finally stop thinking you’re so glad your flight got delayed. |
The problem of conveying irony in text can be especially vexing, as anyone whose girlfriend has an attachment disorder will attest. We have a tendency, when we are hastily tapping out half-funny text messages at red lights, to simply transcribe what we would say in speech, and our sarcastic speech is augmented by tone of voice, rolling eyes, the jerk-off motion and other flourishes that keyboards don’t offer. That being said, a punctuation mark that indicates sarcasm is an awful idea. At best, it will point out at the end of each sentence what dicks we all are. At worst, it will gradually destroy our ability to think. Normally I’m happy to pay $1.99 for that service (episode of Jersey Shore on iTunes) but damnit, some things are sacred, and the western tradition of written irony is one of them.
Before we get any further with this, let me say that if the sarc mark makes no other contribution to society, it has at least quickly exposed what hacks internet writers are. Virtually every article addressing the sarc mark begins the same way: by asserting that it’s a great idea, that Sarcasm, Inc. is a well-known, respectable company, and that before the sarc mark there was never any way to tell if people were being ironic or not. Do you see what they did there? That’s the kind of genius idea you can only come up with by very briefly trying to think of an idea, executed with a subtlety born of deep fear for your reader’s intelligence. That fear, of course, is precisely what led someone to come up with the sarc mark in the first place. It’s also one of the few things that makes sarcasm fun. When you say that the new Black Eyed Peas album is terrific, it seems possible that some dumb bastard somewhere might think you actually mean it.
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It’s the same sort of cheap thrill you get from a Dead Kennedys t-shirt or a Harley Davidson. Even though pretty much everyone understands and remains completely not threatened by sarcasm, you can still indulge the fantasy that you are rebelling a little—that you are in some small way freaking out the squares.
That’s probably why sarcasm is so popular with dumb people as a means of simulating wit. Whether you’re writing a children’s movie or in line at the DMV, saying “Well, this is just great,” is a good way to:
- Convey your recognition that a joke probably belongs here
- Avoid the obligation to actually come up with one.
