Undervalued Wit

 have a feeling that whoever first suggested that sarcasm was the lowest form of wit was either trying to be sarcastic themselves, or doesn’t have a clue. Unfortunately, that person, like far too many people for my liking, really undervalues sarcasm.

One of my favorite quotes says that sarcasm is the bodies natural defense against stupidity. And I quite agree, for most people. Often times it comes so easily that you don’t even realize your doing it until it’s already happened. Unfortunately for writers and bloggers, written/literary sarcasm often goes unnoticed or is assumed to be actual hostility, rather than an attempt to prove a point.

When I was in high school, I took a journalism class. It was exceptionally fun and I got to write a few interesting articles; some of which were actually published in the school paper including one about emotions and their readability through virtual means. Eg. The computer or cellphones. The article was mainly about the emotional readability of text messages, like how someone could say something to you and for whatever reason you read it as if their mad even though emotionally speaking you have no idea how they were feeling (unless they texted in all caps) because it’s a text message with almost no emotional connotations. It’s difficult to detect a feeling in the way someone says something, and yet we assume we know how the author felt when they said it.The same can be said for blogs and/or novels or really any written word that features sarcasm that maybe some people just aren’t getting, and probably never will.

I tend to try and point out my sarcasm in blogs, but occasionally I let it slide, like in the post where I mentioned that I didn’t read Freshly Pressed pages because I was bitter about not being freshly pressed.

That for those of you who couldn’t tell, was mostly sarcasm. Would I love to be freshly pressed? Who wouldn’t? But my not being so isn’t a factor in my not reading it. The biggest reason is… I’ve got things to do. I follow, at least 30 blogs on WordPress, several hundred across 2 blogs on Tumblr, 500+ twitters, plus attempting to write my novel, you think I really have time to remember to check Freshly Pressed on top of all of that? Not a chance.

My point of all of this, (and yes I did actually have one) is that you should really learn to be more sarcastic. Especially you, Jordanna. You never know when it might come in handy.