It's easier to criticize, than to actually do something.

You can also get labeled as a jerk, and ostracized among your social group. You become known as "that guy.."

Often, it's more fun to use it to share an inside joke with someone, when you use it to criticize someone else.

When I give feedback, I like to preface it as a constructive criticism.

When something doesn't affect me directly, I prefer to just let it slide, than to deal with the blowback.

As with anything else, it's better to use it judiciously.

A recent paper found that people who endorsed cynical beliefs were more likely to be treated disrespectfully by others: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/01/th...

I can personally attest that sarcasm will get you labeled as a jerk, downvoted on hn and generally despised, but it will not boost your productivity.

possibly because if you're not being sarcastic, you're engaging in self-censorship

rather than saying sarcasm enhances creativity, this result could mean that being polite in the face of nonsense reduces creativity

A compulsion to express sarcasm out of fear of self-censorship is, itself, a form of self-censorship based on a fallacious premise that sarcasm is somehow more sincere and "honest" than politeness.

And verbal abuse can increase self defense abilities. (Was that creative enough?)

Definitely putting "creativity booster" on my next self-review. :D

Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10595520

I believe that. I bet comedy does, too.

Oscar Wilde was Irish and with that quote ("sarcasm is ..."), he was clearly taking the piss.

Seriously?

Important PSA: sarcastic comments are against the HN rules. My main account was banned because I made a sarcastic comment regarding a HN (technological) holy cow.

We don't ban accounts for that reason.

Comments like this are always linkless, because supplying the relevant links for readers to make up their own minds would reveal a different story.

I think this study has been fabricated.

Yep, definitely feel more intelligent now.

If this gets downvoted a lot then I do think that people stating to stay away from sarcasm are right ;-)

> If this gets downvoted a lot then I do think that people stating to stay away from sarcasm are right ;-)

Or people don't find anything wrong with sarcasm, it's just your comment that is a low effort one.

Hmm... that might be true — it’s a bit subjective to judge it.

But what I can tell you is that I made similar low effort comments that got high upvotes. The key difference is that those comments have a positive sentiment.

I sometimes make comments like the above to test the hypothesis: negative sounding comments get downvoted.

I find it interesting because I’ve learned that if I want to be relatable then I should be positive. Even when a negative comment is thematically appropriate (like the one above), the chance of it being downvoted is still quite high.

I think it’s easier to be critical when negative affect is in play.

I find it fascinating to see both sides of the story.

I just interpret sarcasm as if it were sincere, treating every backhanded compliment as a forehanded one.