Fluther-tiquette - should one attempt to bridge sarchasms?

~

Fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke.

The thing here is…..we have some class clowns in our midst. And their posts are often tongue-in-cheek. It takes a while to get to know who’s who here & to understand their posts. Take dp up there….he may come off as tough & snarky, but he’s really an old sweetie. He has been to me, anyway. :-)

Just sit back & get to know people a little.

Welcome to Fluther!

As @ucme points out placing the ~ in a joke tells others it is in jest. This prevents much of the confusion and dialogue.

As courtesy to the asking party, joke responses be reserved till a question is answered.

@jbfletcherfan quit blowing my cover

No set rules or Fluther-quette. If you don’t get the joke, feel free to ask. As can be seen, you might just get a joke in response, but we’re all tough old birds who don’t mind being challenged. (Some of us are tougher and some of us are, err, birdier, but you’ll soon sort us out.)

If you ask a question that you’d like a straight answer to, you’re going to get some humorous and sarcastic remarks from time to time. You can do a couple of things regarding this probably, whatever suits you best. You can address the person with the witty answer and say thanks and express your thoughts about it or you can just skip over it entirely and address those Jellies that gave serious and insightful answers to your question and start a discussion (or a debate sometimes) directly with them.

The environment here is pretty laid back and the members of Fluther are really good people and I think you’ll probably be pleased at how easily things flow and how well the communication and interactions take place.

@dpworkin… tis my inclination (big pile of ‘danger. humor overhead’ signs at the ready). just lookin to get a feel for the norm

@Dog… oohhh. wasn’t aware. grassyass
(That does kinda take out some of the fun tho – sorta like forcing ‘tongue to cheek’)

@ucme appreciate the hint (have perused but obviously not yet studied docs in depth).
~ but geez, talk about obscure

@dpworkin LOL…I’ll remember that.

Only I am allowed to be sarcastic here without using the tilde.

I think ~s are the hobgoblin of small minds and prefer my sarcasm to be obscure.

The obnoxiousness of the use of the tilde is only exceeded by that of the use of emoticons. (Although I understand that Henry James was incapable of conveying tone in the written language without relying on emoticons, so I could be wrong.)

@dpworkin admitting he could be wrong? Say it ain’t so!

@janbb I marked my calendar, that on this day, @dpworkin sort of admitted he could be wrong.

@chyna Hope you marked it as a red letter day..

Would you like a list of our resident smart asses? We can start with me.

@tinyfaery It might be quicker to name those that aren’t.

@tinyfaery Isn’t part of the fun of Fluther discovering them on your own? (But I agree with @chyna – it might be easier to list those who aren’t.)

Hahahaa…there’s definitely a list of them!!!

He didn’t mean he really could be wrong. He was being facetious.

@Jeruba We were, too.

I tend to have an internal battle before engaging in humor here. Sarcasm is particularly difficult because in real life, it depends on facial expressions and body language and tone of voice.

I usually think about who is asking the question. If it’s a young person, I think the chances that they will get it are slim. But even with experienced people, I’ll add an LOL or ;-) to an answer to indicate an attempt at humor. I do not like the tilde idea. It just seems wrong, somehow. In some cases, where I am writing a fairly involved satirical answer, I might even write a big disclaimer at the bottom saying that the above is not serious. I don’t like doing that —it kind of makes it too easy. Part of the fun is wondering whether I’m serious or not. Part of the fun for me is seeing if I can get people to believe something I find rather implausible.

I guess I believe you shouldn’t talk down to your audience. If people don’t get it and they take something seriously that, if they knew you, they would realize is ridiculous, they it’s just fun. Some people believe I’m a conservative, I think. Or maybe they’re just pulling my leg.

Actually, I’ve submitted an essay about internet humor to the New Yorker. Most of the stuff I say here comes from that essay. Haven’t heard back from them yet.

@chyna, yes. So was I.

@raoool as a by the way, NICE pun in your question. I’m surprised @Zen_Again didn’t snap it up for his collection. Well done! As soon as I was done groaning I was insanely jealous for not having thought of it first.

@Trillian Smart girl. I think it was just a typo and was being very polite and not pointing it out. I think @raoool should be pun-ished for that one.

@janbb let me get my puncil. I need to writhe that one down. ;-)

@Trillian Glad you twisted my words and put some spin on them.

@Trillian thanks for recognizing – but I can’t lay claim to coining the term. Tis one of those ‘create a word’ winners (from a contest the Wash Post or NY Times sponors awarding creation of a term by combining others)

@janbb groan.

@raoool Suitable reward for a punster.

@raoool I usually ignore manners, for the sake of a giggle – spouting off while picking my nose.

I was after all, raised in a barn.

It’s probably not a good idea to act that way, but i’ve learned to live without guilt

“the more I let go of my guilt – the closer I come to my inner sociopath”

Don’t let the Prissie’s sour your interest in deep thought.

@raoool sarcasm – is usually low tech humor and insulting. Higher is prefered. I like to pants them myself. The best humor doesn’t hurt feelings.

There are some discussions here that are not friendly at all. For that I have to agree with PDworkins sentiments.

Don’t sweat the petty stuff, and more importantly, don’t pet the sweaty stuff.