=sarcasm=

When I was in college (here she goes again), there was this boy. It was obvious there was some mutual crushing going on, but most of the flirting was done through email.


One day, he wrote a very impassioned message to a group of us about some injustice or other in the world. I don't quite remember. I wrote something back that was very witty and sarcastic. I knew that he would read my message in the same voice with which I wrote it. Same lilts and all.


You know where this is going.


He did not read it as I had wrote it. He did not see the sarcasm. He thought I was a total jerk. Later I reread it without my snarky reading voice (all done in my head) and realized, "Wow. I sound like a total jerk."


I think that was our last correspondence. (It clearly was never meant to be. He obviously didn't know me well.)


I had learned my lesson. 


Fast forward a few years and I am working as a =high-powered= copywriter and editor at a marketing firm. I wrote an ad for a magazine that was pretty sarcastic in nature. Those who knew me well saw how freaking hilarious it was. We had it published. There were some calls from upset magazine subscribers. They thought it was totally offensive. 


I kept my job... but, yes, learned my lesson.


Writing sarcasm is a tough endeavor. It rarely works, in my opinion. Mostly it just causes misunderstanding. 


But sometimes you really need to be sarcastic. Can I get an amen?


AMEN!


So, the question is, "HOW"?


Italics? All-caps? Parentheses? Quotations?


nope x 4. Already used. Even those cute asterisks have been used up.


Well, my friends, no longer. I am starting a much-needed grassroots movement to change the social media world for the sarcastic better. May I present:

= =

Think of those not as equal signs, but as the wit equalizers. Place one of those on each side of a word or phrase that is meant to be read in a sardonic voice. And now you have done all you can do. No longer will the misunderstanding be YOUR fault. No. It is now in the reader's hands to read it appropriately.


=I'm just trying to make the world a better place.=


=jazz hands=

Pass it on. =GRASSROOTS=

a