Unpopular Opinion

Just commit, no matter the response.

I'm not seeing that as not bravery, its edgy angst.

If someone doesn’t understand or pick up on the sarcasm, it’s not your responsibility to spell it out for them.

You do you, man. I'm not interested in insulting or offending people because they can't parse my vague joke text on the internet. Why would I risk ruining someone's day on a chance a silly joke could be perceived as thoughtless hate? I'd like them laughing with me, not taking yet another tiny piece of their soul that this life does to us everyday anyway.

You add /s because you don’t want to be held accountable.

Damn right! I also don't hand loaded firearms to children because I don't want them hurt. Why do you value your humor so much you're willing to hurt people?

Yeah I used to think so too, until my SO told me "Hey, I get it, your sarcasm is really funny to me. But everyone else thinks your an asshole"

I have a very, very dry sarcasm, and with my tone most people can't tell that I'm usually not being serious when I'm talking, let alone in messages. So yeah, you can hold to the "It's their fault for not getting it", which is what I thought too, but in the court of public opinion they're not going to see you that way. I thought I was a very funny sarcastic guy. They thought I was the asshole that they all braced to work with, and that's why I never got invited to parties.

Assuming everyone is a native English speaker is asinine. Disguising hostility as humor and expecting everyone to understand within a global audience scope is nonsense.

This is akin to respecting pronouns, explaining memes and images in alt text, and speaking up against bigotry. It is simply being a respecting human being with self awareness. You got to be the best semi-sentient entity you can be. /s

We add /s because:

1. Poe's law is a thing. For the uninitiated: "Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is utterly impossible to parody a Creationist in such a way that someone won't mistake for the genuine article."

2. Tone of voice, conversely, is not a thing over text. This is the normal and intended tell for sarcasm, and without it, we have the problem in point 1. Therefore we have to use /s, winking smileys, etc, to denote sarcasm.

Nobody needs to explain sarcasm, but sometimes you need to indicate satire.

A totally reasonable take.

No. Fucking NO. It's insane to me that anyone could've lived through the past 10 years and not see how necessary it is to always use the /s tag. There's reasonable evidence that Donald Trump's original campaign never would've even got off the ground if it weren't for people sarcastically supporting him and idiots not realizing it was sarcasm

I never really thought about it before, but yeah, I think I can agree with this. However, seeing people use the /s doesn't bother me.

How about just not posting any useless shit that needs a /s? Sarcasm often is not as clever or funny as the poster thinks it is.

I thought it meant sincere

/s when the point is what's important

no /s when the joke is what's important

You've ignored the wider picture with this. There are generally 4 categories in which all comments fall:

1. Sarcasm read as sarcasm
2. Sarcasm read as being serious
3. Being serious read as sarcasm
4. Being serious read as being serious

If everyone used /s 2. and 3. would disappear. Yes, you can think it is cowardly to avoid 2., but I think it is much more important to also avoid 3. by tagging all sarcasm.

I have seen time and again that the /s is vital. There are always idiots that don't get the joke, and sometimes, those idiots happen to be admins.

You are correct.

I wouldn't say cowardly, but I concur that /s is used by the feeble and weak of society. If you cannot tell that I am being sarcastic when I say that I am going to cut you into small pieces and feed you to the hounds, you deserved to be cut into small pieces and fed to the hounds.