Melmi

It’s a slash because it’s a shortened version of <sarcasm></sarcasm>, fake HTML tags that used to be used on forums.

Except half the trick to deploying sarcasm is to use tone of voice, which you can’t do in a text-only format. /s is like a shortcut for that. To use a face-to-face example, it’s like saying something sarcastic with a straight face then cracking a smile to reveal you were joking all along.

Plus we’re on the internet, people have some terrible takes that totally seem like they should be sarcastic but just aren’t.

I guess I do get it though. /s does take some of the humor out of it, but it seems like more than a worthy tradeoff. People are just so hostile to it.

Reddit Silver being an award just completely stole all the magic out of it. It was a cute little memey way to show support and make fun of Reddit Golf and then it got turned into a way to put more money in Reddit’s pocket :c

I think this is the big thing that Fediverse platforms are missing right now. If you want to be able to ban instances yourself, you have to run your own.

Never got the resistance to /s. Some people just struggle with understanding sarcasm, seems an easy way to avoid misunderstanding.