The other day a company called SarcMark came out and started pushing for the acceptance of a new emoticon to be used in emails, text messages and other forms of electronic communication to represent sarcasm. Now being the type of person that is very sarcastic, I’m very familiar with a message being misinterpreted because the tone of my voice wasn’t able to be heard through the text, so it has become habit to include LOL, or 😉 to a sarcastic statement to ensure the person understands the context.
This is my issue with the whole concept. When it comes to sarcasm, you basically have two types of people. The type who get sarcasm and the type who don’t. I have said in the past that Sarcasm is an art, and my father is definitely not an artist. My Dad falls into the second category, the type that just doesn’t get sarcasm, and nothing with change that, in any form of communication. With email and texting becoming such a norm, most people, like myself who are very sarcastic have already adapted and included other emoticons to help translate to the reader that we’re being sarcastic. A new emoticon for sarcasm isn’t going to really change how people communicate. Its a story now, probably because the company who is pushing it, is also trying to cash in on the idea by charging people $1.99 to be able to use it. That’s right people, you have to pay to be sarcastic now! (And yes, I happen to have a couple of bucks sitting in my Paypal account, so I did actually purchase this, so I might complain I have to pay, but I’ll still pay 2 bucks to keep my sparkling sarcastic self hip to the current trends)
Is it a neat idea? Yeah! Is it a new idea? Not really, another guy tried to push the same concept a few years back, by saying an upside-down exclamation point could be used, which to me makes more sense then using something that looks like a doodle a monkey would make. Will I embrace it? I don’t know if I’d say I’ll embrace it, but I will definitely have fun using it from time to time, but do I see it catching on? No, I don’t, not in any form, and its for the reasons I posted above that I don’t feel it will catch on. A symbol will not help people understand or get sarcasm any better then they do now. Sarcasm is an art, an understanding that has found a way to evolve without the need of a specific symbol. It wasn’t broke, and thus didn’t need fixing!