I think most people who use it are just scared from the uneducated downvotes/ backlash and I think it just ruins the sarcasm.
I started to avoid using it on other social media as it seems kind of dumb.
My opinion for it on Lemmy is mostly the same but it might work better here if Lemmy had a sarcasm tag instead(the same way NSFW tag work)of /s to signal the sarcasm instead.
upvoting because this is definitely unpopular. tone is not conveyed in text and various sarcastic phrases need the intonation to be understood as sarcastic.
Oh really?! Tone isn't conveyed in text and you can't detect literal sarcasm unless it's broadcast like a beacon from someone's warped piehole? Like a ship at sea in the calmest waters, you can't find your way home without a lighthouse?
No, there isn't. Tone is inflection in speech and body-language. In text, you might reasonably think it could be inferred, but that doesn't mean it can't be conveyed. And if someone is missing the inference, piling on "evidence of tone" phrases could be misinterpreted as "more proof of conviction".
Use /s. If you get downvoted because you didn't, that's on you.
You can be as bitter about it as you like but it absolutely is required. You could come up the most obvious sarcasm you could ever imagine, and I'll find you people that believe you're being sincere.
We live in the post satire era.
I'm not sure how your idea for a sarcasm tag is any different to /s, it seems to be a roundabout way to achieve the exact same thing.
The weird thing is, using Emojis is like the perfect way to display subtle and varied verbal inflections in text form.. but people here largely refuse to do it because they see it as cringe
Text doesn't convey tone and cadence, and people are dumb, so /s is always needed when typing sarcasm. It's not because you are dumb or because the readers are dumb, but because when you've said something sarcastic, it's indistinguishable from stupidity. If you don't use it, a solid percentage of people who read your post are going to think that you are just stupid.
Or maybe gen pop should get better at reading comprehension and learning to ask clarifying question if they are unable to understand content and context for whatever reason.
That's how discussions work.
OR we can just SPAZZZ RHEEEEE, DOWN VOTE BIGOT SOYBOY!
Yeah, but the assholes will think you agree with them, which bolsters them. It's much more fun to write out something they agree with to a T, and then add the /s tag. Completely deflating, utter devastation.