Deadpan Snarker Discussion Thread

It sounds like a thing. It's one of those "cool" tropes people like when they manifest in characters, and do not work quite as well in real life as they do in fiction. That sounds like a really common but not chairs concept.

I'm with WarJay on the "proper" definition being an actual thing. However, the Trope Decay has gotten so bad that the current name is effectively unsalvageable and the entire page might need an overhaul. New name, tightened up definition, etc.

Edited by Karxrida on Jan 28th 2023 at 1:52:06 AM

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?

Er, what do you mean by proper? Because right now I'm on the side of "the deadpan part doesn't matter" but I don't think it should be used for any time anyone snarks. So depending on what you mean, we may not actually agree.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

I think I could see a trope hierarchy along the lines of:

• Snark (Exampleless Supertrope since it's so common)
  • Character defined by their snark ("Habitual Snarker" or some similar name, regular snarkers that don't fit any subtropes go here)
    • Silent Snarker
    • Sarcastic Devotee
    • Mouthy Kid
    • Other character types where snark is an important facet
  • Snarking Thanks
  • And I'm the Queen of Sheba
  • Literalist Snarking
  • Other tropes describing commons ways snark is expressed

As to where the previously mentioned "Deadpan Comedy" proposal mentioned earlier, I could see it being as a Comedy subtrope that's a supertrope of The Comically Serious, Straight Man, maybe Snark itself, and perhaps some other things.

I agree with this, and I see it being a thing. Not sure about deadpan comedy, tho.

Deadpan comedy as a style of comedy (e.g. Black Comedy) is definitely a thing — it's often found in British Humour, for instance. I don't know about it being a straight supertrope to those, though, as opposed to "frequently overlapping". For instance, the Wikipedia page for "Straight man" says (emphasis mine):

Edited by Twiddler on Jan 28th 2023 at 4:41:53 AM

Makes sense. More of a sister trope to those, then.

Regarding what "deadpan" means, this page actually dates all the way back to the sytes.net days, which combined with the apparent definition at the time, actually makes me wonder if it was always as simple as making the title a Wiki Word. (For similar reasons, pages like An Aesop and An Arc had superfluous articles added rather than simply being Aesop and Arc, though Story Arc was probably always a better name for the latter.) Even the deconstruction I was thinking of had more to do with the snark part than the deadpan part. So I guess the misuse has always been about ignoring it being a character trope (and people wanting the "deadpan" to mean something).

Sorry for the late response, but I've been a bit busy.

I was posting at *checks post time* 2am, so I might have totally misread what you meant.

I agree that it should not be used for whenever someone snarks. However, I do think the deadpan aspect kind of matters for making it tropeable (like what Twiddler said). Because what do we have otherwise?

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?

Otherwise, it's a character trope about the character who is constantly responding with witty, sarcastic comments. It doesn't need to be any more specific than that — this concept alone is a noticeable character archetype and whatever the deadpan part means (apparently it may be entirely unrelated to what everyone originally thought it meant) doesn't change what the actual character trope is. I mean, the humor being deadpan is often a part of it and I won't say it's not a common attribute, but I don't think that the humor has to be deadpan — just that the character is characterized through their use of sarcasm, in a way that makes them stand out compared to others (so someone in a World of Snark wouldn't count).

To clarify, the main reason I don't want a rename isn't because I think the deadpan part is important. It's because I think a rename would be utterly unhelpful because the misuse has nothing to do with lacking the "deadpan" part and renaming it won't stop people from shoehorning it.

Edited by WarJay77 on Jan 29th 2023 at 9:37:39 AM

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

I think more subtropes should be made and Deadpan Snarker should be made a simple redirect.

OBJECTION!

I’m proposing a subtrope called Kind Snarker which is basically a snarker who comes across as 100% a Nice Person.

But most seem torn on the idea. Like WarJay77.

Edited by AudioSpeaks2 on Mar 20th 2023 at 12:32:40 PM

Art Museum Curator and frequent helper of the Web Original deprecation project

Er, it's less that I'm "torn" and more that I'm pretty much convinced that even if you've struck upon a tropeworthy concept, the TVT community can't handle it based on past examples.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

As far as potential options go:

• Redirect to Oh Great, a Snark Index.
• Split the examples between a bunch of new pages and have Deadpan Snarker disambig between them.
• Give Deadpan Snarker an Example Sectionectomy.
• Do nothing TRS-related and just embark on a massive cleanup project.

List is obviously non-exhaustive. Renaming, transplanting, redirection and disambiguation options, which have gotten the bulk of the discussion so far, are controversial, so maybe it'd be worth exploring other options before looping back around to those. Note that there are 77.5K inbounds, so cutting's off the table, and IIRC renaming isn't even an option, either.

Edited by badtothebaritone on Mar 20th 2023 at 4:33:52 AM

I think your proposed snark hierarchy is a fairly good idea.

Edited by AudioSpeaks2 on Aug 3rd 2023 at 5:06:59 PM

Art Museum Curator and frequent helper of the Web Original deprecation project

I might just bring up in the Trope Idea Sounding Board the idea of a Supertrope or Definition-Only Page for Snark

Edited by AudioSpeaks2 on Dec 21st 2023 at 5:17:36 PM

Art Museum Curator and frequent helper of the Web Original deprecation project