The sarcasm tag (/s) needs to die.

r/

I’ve noticed a growing trend of Redditors adding the /s tag to comments that are clearly not sarcastic. It seems like they’re doing it either to preemptively avoid downvotes or even as a weird way to try and get upvotes.

This completely defeats the purpose of the sarcasm tag, which was originally helpful for clarifying tone. It has lost its value.

Comments

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  2. AdvancedCelery4849 Avatar

    Iirc, /s means satire, not sarcasm. Could be wrong tho

  3. lxpb Avatar

    So true /s

  4. Minnesota_Empathy Avatar

    I agree that it shouldn’t be used to troll or deflect criticism, but it’s still an incredibly useful tool. It’s difficult to perceive tone in text.

  5. oooh_a_plane Avatar

    Forgot the /s OP?

  6. pickadamnnameffs Avatar

    It defeats the purpose of sarcasm or satire.
    I don’t like it either,if you need sarcasm to be pointed out to you it’s your problem.

    No /s.

  7. CocktorDoctopus Avatar

    They just say some absolutely fucked up shit and think they’re in the clear by using /s

  8. thepineapplemen Avatar

    How can you tell these comments are clearly not sarcastic? It could just be a bad attempt at sarcasm

  9. Apprehensive_Yak2598 Avatar

    I started using it it after a comment of mine got reported. Sarcasm doesn’t translate well to text. 

  10. CatRevolutionary1207 Avatar

    Never noticed them doing that. I only see them using it when they’re actually being sarcastic. The problem is that it sounds really rude and contemptuous. You could say “just kidding” and it sounds fun and quirky. If you say /s it sounds like “um yeah, that’s sarcasm by the way”, sounds like you have a ton of deep seated rage. Which is sometimes fine but express it directly, not in this passive aggressive form.

  11. AdministrationDry507 Avatar

    What have you done? Reddit is going to have a field day with this post.

  12. KeeperOfUselessInfo Avatar

    the s tag can die when whoosh dies. too many people still miss the point/joke/pun/intended sarcasm. also, even though sarcasm transcends race and culture, it does not translate well in terms of linguistic relativity of other languages from other cultures.

  13. visual-vomit Avatar

    Sure, that definitely won’t cause a bunch of misunderstandings cause conveying sarcasm through text is honestly pretty easy.

  14. JohnnyKarateX Avatar

    I agree it’s over used but we still need a way to distinguish since some people can’t tell the difference in text form.

  15. Pr_fSm__th Avatar

    Straight outta r/fucktheS

  16. EthanTheJudge Avatar

    This is a great post Op! >!/s!<

  17. Cloud_N0ne Avatar

    Sarcasm requires tone of voice to be properly understood, and you can’t properly convey tone via text.

  18. Samael13 Avatar

    If someone is marking a response as sarcasm, how do you know it’s not intended as sarcasm?