Social Authenticity Needs a Little Insincerity: Enter the SarcMark
Several days ago I chuckled at a Tweet from @GrammarGirl that linked to a column outlining a plan to institute a sarcasm mark. “I can get on board with that,” I thought. After all, I use sarcasm regularly in verbal communications and have to hold back on social sites and in e-mails for fear I’ll be misunderstood.
But this column in the USA Today drove home what I was feeling.
We’re becoming overly nice in our online communications, which are increasingly becoming our main form of communication. Exclamation marks and emoticons are becoming ubiquitous, a boon for ridiculously happy people. But that’s not who I am, or many others, and it means that I don’t get a chance to share my full personality with friends. So I say yes, let’s amend our punctuation repertoire to add in a sarcasm mark because our authenticity depends on it.
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