Tropedia

  • Before making a single edit, Tropedia EXPECTS our site policy and manual of style to be followed. Failure to do so may result in deletion of contributions and blocks of users who refuse to learn to do so. Our policies can be reviewed here.
  • All images MUST now have proper attribution, those who neglect to assign at least the "fair use" licensing to an image may have it deleted. All new pages should use the preloadable templates feature on the edit page to add the appropriate basic page markup. Pages that don't do this will be subject to deletion, with or without explanation.
  • All new trope pages will be made with the "Trope Workshop" found on the "Troper Tools" menu and worked on until they have at least three examples. The Trope workshop specific templates can then be removed and it will be regarded as a regular trope page after being moved to the Main namespace. THIS SHOULD BE WORKING NOW, REPORT ANY ISSUES TO SelfCloak. DON'T MAKE PAGES MANUALLY UNLESS A TEMPLATE IS BROKEN, AND REPORT IT THAT IS THE CASE. PAGES WILL BE DELETED OTHERWISE IF THEY ARE MISSING BASIC MARKUP.

READ MORE

Tropedia
WikEd fancyquotesQuotesBug-silkHeadscratchersIcons-mini-icon extensionPlaying WithUseful NotesMagnifierAnalysisPhoto linkImage LinksHaiku-wide-iconHaikuLaconic
Cquote1
Homer: Oh, look at me! I'm making people happy! I'm the Magical Man from Happy-Land, in a gumdrop house on Lollipop Lane! [leaves, slamming the door. Beat. pokes his head back in] By the way, I was being sarcastic. [slams door]
Marge: Well, duh.
Cquote2
Sarcastic Nickel

D'awww, thanks!

Simply put, marking online text to indicate sarcasm.

Even verbally, sarcasm doesn't always carry over well. Some people just can't recognize it. Some people just can't express it. On the Internet it's worse. While it's bad to act out an emotion by merely stating that you feel that way, on the Internet it is sometimes necessary to indicate emotions such as sarcasm. Here is one way to mark it up:

Cquote1

sarcasm mode on You mean you can't hear voice inflections in text? sarcasm mode off

Cquote2


This is also seen in Faux HTML Tags: <sarcasm> </sarcasm> form. Usually with this kind of sarcasm tag, only the closing tag is used. It's not as much fun, and might even be insulting, to announce in advance that you're being sarcastic, and oh, how the world weeps when you're insulted, right? </sarcasm>

Some people display sarcasm by emphasizing certain words as one would in speech, usually by using italic font. Others however, just use words that are not common in natural speech, such as "Gosh, really?", "My goodness, I never would have guessed that", and "Gee willikers, that's so insightful." Other people have even proposed a sarcastic font.

Scare Quotes or Tradesnark may also be regarded as examples of this. Ditto for using capitalization to mock-assert that some type of Serious Business is being discussed.

Roger Ebert has a rather comprehensive essay on this very subject, titled "This is the Dawning of the Age of Credulity", written after people completely failed to appreciate the sarcasm behind an 'interview' he gave regarding Creationism. This, however, was due to Poe's Law.

Sarcasm mode is Older Than Radio: the irony mark, ؟, was proposed in the 19th century.

On Wikipedia, people have unsuccessfully tried to outlaw sarcasm, eventually culminating in this essay.[1]

Users on TV Tropes tend to mark sarcasm in what they write by making the sentence in question and potholing it to this page. Do NOT do this. It's a much better idea to just write in a way that makes the sarcasm clear. Limit the potholes to when it's actually necessary, like for showing the sarcasm in a quote whose sarcasm isn't apparent without the pothole.

Compare and contrast Sincerity Mode. The essence of And I'm the Queen of Sheba.

  1. Ironically, this essay is against sarcasm, and it gets this through by being entirely sarcastic.