Deadpan Snarker Discussion Thread

At this point, it's no secret that Deadpan Snarker has undergone severe Trope Decay to "anyone who's ever been sarcastic even once," and I've been wanting to do something about this for a while now. I did some asking around, and some people said that it should go back to TRS to fix this, while others said all it needs is a big cleanup effort. I personally think a rename would help significantly because the current one is tainted to hell and back, but what other options would be worth considering here?

Edit: Corrected a thing.

Edited by badtothebaritone on Jan 26th 2023 at 10:52:03 AM

I personally don't think a rename is going to do anything when people aren't misusing the tropes because of the name. The deadpan part is just an artifact. I don't think renaming the trope to something The Snarker will do anything as it's basically already being used that way.

"a relatively unemotional character who regularly delivers sarcasm" isn't what the trope is about (at least now) and I don't think the current definition requires unemotional characters.

Edited by MacronNotes on Jan 26th 2023 at 11:46:50 AM

Renaming can work as a way to stop misuse.

Misuse usually happens because tropers don't know the actual definition of the trope. They see bad examples and assume that's the way the trope is supposed to be, leading to them writing more bad examples and creating Trope Decay.

If we rename the trope and clean it up properly, the newbie hive mind's collective thoughts about the trope are "reset" and we don't have to deal with over a decade's worth of misconceptions.

Of course, if we rename it but fail to clean it up (e.g. replacing the trope name with the new one without checking whether it's valid,) we're back to square one after a couple years.

Interestingly enough, taking a look through Oh Great, a Snark Index, I'm not actually seeing an "unemotional snarker" trope like what I thought this trope initially was. Food for thought.

Is "unemotional snarker" really even that distinct from the (intended) current trope, which is "character who is sarcastic a lot?"

Even the trope description admits the name is The Artifact. If it were being used properly I'd be fine with letting it stay as is, but I see too much misuse. It's at least worth making a wick check to see how bad it's become over the years.

The trope is being used for "a character that's defined by their snarkiness" so maybe we can adjust the description to reflect how it's being used (anyone who says a snarky comment would still count as misuse).

This trope has been taken to the TRS 3 times in regards to the issues it has ([1], [2][3]). Renaming has been shot down each time so not sure how it's going to be different this time.

Also, a few years me and other made Deadpan Snarker Wick Check for the TRS thread I made for the trope in 2020. We might want to make another wick check but the trope hasn't changed in three years so I don't know if that's necessary.

Edited by MacronNotes on Jan 26th 2023 at 12:13:47 PM

Given what I'm seeing, I'm thinking a rename to something like Habitual Snarker and making it a supertrope to a bunch of other snarker tropes like Servile Snarker, Gentleman Snarker, Stepford Snarker, Cuckoosnarker, and so on (currently it's only a supertrope to Grade System Snark) would help emphasize the intended meaning (a character defined by their snarkiness) a lot more. An optional Stoic Snarker (name tentative) subtrope could also be created to capture the implied name of the trope.

I've mostly considered Deadpan Snarker to be when a character saying something they don't mean in intentional slow monotone because they're annoyed. Since the trope is actually about, but not limited to, characters who often use Sarcasm Mode as Rule of Funny, it'd be easier to TLP a subtrope first and move some examples there, then an outright rename.

A subtrope defined as what? Are you suggesting we turn the actual definition into a subtrope? That wouldn't work — Nobody would even know it exists so even if a massive cleanup happens, Deadpan Snarker would keep gathering examples that fit the "subtrope".

And I'm not in favor of a rename because it wouldn't fit the real problem. The most common issue is people using it for any time someone snarks, not that the deadpan part was forgotten, because everyone knows it's an artifact at this point anyway.

Edited by WarJay77 on Jan 26th 2023 at 1:26:14 PM

New tropes Oh Great, a Snark Index are made from time to time, so I don't see why "elongated annoyed monotone" would be a problem to draft.

As for the OP question, don't see what to do about "using it for any time someone snarks" aside a cleanup, if those aren't examples.

That's why I asked what your subtrope would be. To me, it sounded like you wanted to move the current definition to a new trope, because it's a more specific version of "character snarks". Which was the entire point of my first paragraph. If that's not what you meant then it's not an issue.

Edited by WarJay77 on Jan 26th 2023 at 1:43:29 PM

So the definition of Deadpan Snarker is "someone who snarks", and you have a proposal for whenever someone snarkily goes, "Su-u-u-u-u-ure" or "Right, that to-o-o-o-otally works" or the like?

Yes? Sounds distinct enough from general snarks unless I'm missing something.

No objections. It's not a subtrope of Deadpan Snarker as I understand the latter. Strictly speaking, your proposed snark-trope would be misuse of Deadpan Snarker if the character didn't habitually snark.

I think that's part of why I was confused. It didn't sound like your idea would be a subtrope of Deadpan Snarker, moreso that Deadpan Snarker might be a subtrope of it (as snarkers tend to be annoyed by default). But even then that's not entirely true because while a lot of snarkers snark out of annoyance, others just do it because it's their sense of humor or something.

Edited by WarJay77 on Jan 26th 2023 at 2:36:38 PM

I'll formally correct myself that what I've said as "Deadpan Snarker trope" was meant to be "Oh Great, a Snark Index trope" and some misuse of non-habitual examples at Deadpan Snarker can potentially be moved over.

I wonder if the original flaw with this page was deciding to frame it as a character trope. Would Deadpan Snark still be so prone to misuse?

I mean, it'd just create more problems, I think.

This is a character type and there's no reason to make it a general "snark exists" trope.

It just feels like "snark exists" to me already, usually.

That's the misuse, though, and we do have a cleanup thread for it. I'm not in favor of any solution that broadens the scope, because I think the current title and concept is fine, people just overuse it.

I wasn't proposing actually renaming and broadening it like that, just musing on how the trope may have decayed this way only For Want Of A Nail.

Wait, I thought this was supposed to be about actually deadpan snarkers, and I definitely recall the description talking about how such behavior can alienate people from others if people can't tell when they're being sarcastic, but it turns out that's not the case anymore and might not even have been the case as far back as the 2011 TRS threads. But I'm hearing both that the current definition is "a character defined by their snarking" and the misuse is "any use of snark by any character ever", and that "a character defined by their snarking" is the misuse? I think the first thing we need is some clarification on what this trope actually is.

I'm also inclined to think "any instance of snark" or "snark exists" is People Sit on Chairs and would need to be kept out of the page no matter what. That might be the best argument for a rename: it used to be people were skipping past the "deadpan" but now it turns out they're skipping past the "-er" as well, or at best reading it as basically "snark, but the example is the person who does it instead of the act itself". Anyone who snarks is technically a "snarker", so something like Habitual Snarker would better get across the idea of someone defined by their snarkiness.

Edited by MorganWick on Jan 27th 2023 at 1:56:19 AM

It seems that people took issue with the fact that the Deadpan part of the trope being meaningless since 2010 so I suppose the deadpan part of the description was never really emphasized. I am beginning to think deadpan actually refers to how the snark is delivered and not the character's personality but maybe thats not much of a difference. The term refers to the unemotional delivery of dry humor which isn't really a personality trait.

I am still not convinced that a rename of any sort is going to help curb misuse. Maybe it will once get through the 34k wicks after a couple of years but eh. I still think Habitual Snarker is going to see misuse.

Edited by MacronNotes on Jan 27th 2023 at 6:40:11 AM

Now that you mention it, that probably is what the "deadpan" part was supposed to mean.

Having given things some more thought, I think snark might be tropeworthy in and of itself. At its core, it's criticism or mockery delivered in a indirect and sarcastic way. I don't think any of those four things are really tropeworthy by themselves, but the combination of the four gives off a distinctively dry, cynical, yet witty tone that almost nothing else delivers so efficiently.

Am I on to something here or just seeing connections that aren't there?

Edited by badtothebaritone on Jan 27th 2023 at 4:21:34 AM

Not that I expect it'd help with Deadpan Snarker misuse, but I I think there's a missing trope in non-character-specific Deadpan Comedy / Deadpan Humour (Wikipedia).