Oh Great a Snark Cleanup thread (Sarcasm and Snark tropes clean up thread)

So the TRS thread for Deadpan Snarker suggested that we make a cleanup thread for all the problematic Snark/Sarcasm tropes. On the Agenda:

• Deadpan Snarker: This trope suffers from heavy misuse of being used every time someone said something sarcastic even though snarkiness isnt part of their defining character traits
• Sarcasm Mode: Trope that is almost always used as a pothole magnet for sarcasm. The trope's description says its a Painting the Medium type thing where sarcasm is indicated in text so theoretically it would have in-universe examples from books and comics among other things.
• Proposed Sarcasm page

Edited by MacronNotes on Jun 9th 2020 at 2:33:18 PM

re: hypothetical Sarcasm page, id think it would have to be a no-examples page just because of the sheer volume of examples - i think the list of works that don't have any flippancy in them would be miles shorter than the inverse.

Yeah I think it should be a definition only page.

I also found Snark Ball which looks pretty underbaked. It dates back to 2011 and has 8-9 on page examples half of which are ZCE and 53 wicks so it's clearly not thriving. So I guess that's an easy one? Does it just need crosswicking or are there deeper issues?

Edited by MacronNotes on Jun 9th 2020 at 2:46:23 PM

Snark Ball comes off like a more specific version of Smart Ball where the character just says something uncharacteristically snarky, which doesn't really seem like a tropeworthy concept.

I’d also rather not have a page on Sarcasm be potholed everywhere I look.

I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but the Sarcasm Mode sinkhole problem also applies to Blatant Lies and Understatement.

understatement is another trope id be happy to see moved to definition-only. there's just too many examples.

So which trope do you guys want to hone on in?

Snark Ball may be the quickest.

As for Snark Ball, I agree with Warjay that it's just a more specific form of Smart Ball and isnt needed.

i also agree with Jay. Snark Ball should be cut and its examples folded into Smart Ball, possibly in their own subsection.

Gonna go against the grain and say no to cutting Snark Ball. I think intelligence and snarkiness are distinct enough concepts.

The description of Snark Ball literally states:

"Alice is stupid. There's no Obfuscating Stupidity either: her inability to grasp basic logic is one of the main driving forces behind the main plot. Except, outside the main plot she regularly plays Deadpan Snarker or Only Sane Man to smarter characters.

That means she just caught a Snark Ball: an imaginary device that makes a character consistently show more wit than he actually has."

A character showing occasional moments of wit isn't meaningful if it's not something of an OOC moment and the only way it would be is if the character usually isn't smart or with it enough to be sarcastic.

Even if it's not just a variant of Smart Ball though, I don't see much point in having a trope that's just "Alice occasionally says a snarky thing but she's usually not snarky".

good snarking requires intelligence, though. think of it as "character displays an acuity with words that they don't normally possess".

It's also a personality / character voice trait. You can have a smart character who is not prone to snarking who catches the Snark Ball. So no, it's not a subset of Smart Ball, it's a Venn diagram.

That said, I'm not sure it's a tropeworthy concept in and of itself. Smart Ball is used to facilitate the plot. But what is the meaning of a non-snarker suddenly snarking? To show they've been pushed too far? Creating a jarring effect for humor?

in that case, the page needs to be rewritten to eliminate mentions of stupidity as a requirement.

I agree. It's misleading if you're right.

Sudden thought: might it be worthwhile to make a page for Deadpan Comedy / Deadpan Humor, along the lines of the other comedy subgenres e.g Black Comedy, Surreal Humor, Rapid-Fire Comedy, Rant Comedy?

I'd normally take this to the TLP discard thread, but I found a draft for Drive-By Snarking which is the opposite of what we want. Let's get rid of it.

Just tossed the fifth bomb, nuke at your leasure.

Was tempted to add a Deadpan Snarker example to a page I'm trying to flesh out right now, but I'm no longer entirely sure about what does / doesn't qualify. The character in question here is the protagonist as well as a genuinely nice guy, but he dishes out a lot of sarcastic responses to things, usually relating to his situation.

Basically I'm wondering how big of a character trait it should be. Does it matter more if the character is constantly sarcastic, or if they're the character who dishes out the most sarcasm? Basically, what's the main factor that determines if a character qualifies? There are a lot of examples I can say for sure do/don't qualify, but it's harder when adding a new one, since I'm second guessing just how strict the criteria is.

To me if one of the adjectives that comes to mind when describing the character is sarcastic then I say it would count. Character who snarks a lot and a character defined by their sarcasm isn't that much different to mw

Hmmm... I guess at some point it's a judgement call. But I'll sleep on it and see if I really think of this character as "sarcastic" rather than someone who says a few snarky lines.

Bump; what we doing with Snark Ball?

Well I still think it is that tropable. It is like the other ball tropes where the change in characterization affects the plot. I guess having a character not known for snark be snarky one episode for unexpected humor could be a thing but not really sure.

Should we take Snark Ball to TRS or can we have a crowner to decide what to do with it here?