Sarcasm: A Guide For The Passive-Aggressive

I consider myself to be a connoiseur of the delicacies and intricacies in the art of sarcasm, and I am delighted and giddy and darling and squeeky and crunchy and silly and grandiloquently elated to be sharing, with you, these little fibres of wisdom which you will then weave into an exquisite tapestry of passive-aggressiveness and sly, malevolent wit.

I think the reason I direct this little "how to" (as you do) towards persons who consider themselves to be passive-aggressive is because you already have the vanilla ice cream. It's so much easier to add the Bailey's/chocolate sauce topping that is sarcasm to a well-built (albeit bland) foundation of sweet, creamy passive-aggressiveness. To be clear, I mean the unattractive character trait version of passive-aggressiveness, not the personality disorder. However blurred that border may be, I do not want to be accused of insensitivity towards the persons unfortunate enough to be afflicted with a disorder that counts procrastination, sulking, and irresponsibility as its defining symptoms.

To be sarcastic, one could possibly say, is to be witty in an often creatively wounding and contemptuous way. However, as I have explored over the decades of my life (of which there have been two), I have realized that there are two forms of sarcasm.

Type I Sarcasm is one of humour. Shared among friends, comfortable aquiantances, favourable family members, and other such relatables, sarcasm can be an amusing form of delightfulness intended only to "poke fun" as they say in some 19th century noble circles. This form draws upon a particular flaw or unflattering characteristic of a certain person or persons of universal traits and emphasizes this flaw in such a way that it employs the use of wit or general jubilance in order to recognize its absurdity, mild inferiority, or even just its abnormality in comparison to things of a similar but more commonplace nature. Now, this type of sarcasm is relatively easy to detect as it is usually accompanied by an earnest smile or general joyous expression on the face of the person employing the use of Type I Sarcasm. This honest, gleeful expression at the successful implementation of humourous sarcasm may often appear alongside a friendly gesture such as elbow nudge, a sassy shrug of the shoulders, or even a swatting of a hand (right or left) through the air in a careless, yet hopelessly endearing, fashion. Be not afraid of or hateful towards the use of Type I Sarcasm. It is, as I and my lovely kinship of imagination like to call it, the friendship sarcasm. It is a way of signifying that you are comfortable enough with an individual that you are not afraid of losing their (platonic or otherwise) affections because you recognize and voice a minor flaw in their character or abilities. It's a grand step toward building new relationships on a modern, but still magnanimous, level. I think I should mention the keyword "minor" here. Choosing a minor flaw is easy and one that the recipient is surely already aware of and ambivalent toward, so "poking fun" at it isn't causing them personal or emotional harm by letting on that other humans (besides themselves) are aware of this flaw. Turning major flaws into sarcastic remarks is only a good idea if your goal in life is impotency. That brings me to the next type.

Type II Sarcasm is one of malice. While this type of sarcasm is used usually in firey and impassioned confrontations between persons who, most likely, do not appreciate the time spent in each others company and, quite possibly, have endured previous occassions of unpleasantness in the presence of one another. In short, Type II is the sarcasm of the hurtful. It is the sarcasm that is designed to inflict the most psychological woundage on the humanly target and is very hard to undo in an immediate fashion by using more words (no matter how linguistically, syntactically, or dialectically proficient you are). It is hard, as an even somewhat moral homo sapiens, to recommend the usage of Type II Sarcasm, because it's primary intention is to cause emotional pain. However, as I have experienced on many an occassion, it certainly has its place. Use it sparingly, but when you do, make sure it's enough to carve your initials like Zorro on the very core of their identity and to parade their insecurities in front of them like their mother unleashed unto the universe a collosal evil just by giving birth to them. Quite simple really.

I think it's important, at this point in the instruction, to continue with the definition of sarcasm in it's proper (yet still divided) context. The key to sarcasm is that it is essentially a (playful or otherwise) insult that has been put in reverse form and paired with physically manifested emotions. To use an example in this situation would illustrate my point more clearly. To say "your parrot has a very substantial eating problem" would be a comment of constructive criticism, one that does not qualify as sarcasm due to it's drabness and overall lack of spunk. To say "your parrot is really fat" is just a plain insult, without jazzy over- or under-tones, or any imagination whatsoever. To say "so I see your parrot is a Weight Watchers success story" is sarcasm. It combines the obvious visual nature of the overweight parrot, with the verbal contradictory statement that it must have recently lost some poundage (or depending on the breed of parrot, ouncage). The sarcasm user knows it's false, the parrot owner knows it's false, and the parrot (undoubtedly) also knows it's false; however, the sentence possesses a contradiction that makes the target question the motives behind the comment. The sarcasm user will often use indicative gestures or expressions like eye-rolls, eye-brow raises, goofy smirks, huffy chuckles, and foot shuffling to indicate sarcasm. To say "your parrot is chunky to the max, yo" should be avoided at all costs, for the sake of humanity.

It is the paradoxical nature of sarcasm that makes it exceedingly hard to recognize in textual form; more specifically, over the internetscape. I suggest refraining from using sarcasm unless you are absolutely sure that your tone of script can only be interpreted in the way that you intended. This takes a very skilled sarcasm artist, and if you have been recieved successfully in the past, I tip my metaphorical top-hat in your direction.

As I bring us to the conclusion of this little "how to", I should like to remind you that sarcasm is considered one of the premiere linguistic fine arts and should be treated as such. Don't toss it about willy nilly. Treat it with care. Nurse it. Dress it. Make it your own. Don't dare turn it into a frivolity of common verbal exchange. Show some respect. Taking that with you, march forth and pummel fair citizens with your dry, graceful, steely tongue and watch as people either crumble under your charms or flee, weeping from your presence.

Good day.