Poe's law: Difference between revisions
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Avoid sarcasm and facetious remarks. |
Avoid sarcasm and facetious remarks. |
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Without the voice inflection and body language of personal communication these are easily misinterpreted. A sideways smile, :-) |
Without the voice inflection and body language of personal communication these are easily misinterpreted. A sideways smile, :-), has become widely accepted on the net as an indication that "I'm only kidding". If you submit a satiric item without this symbol, no matter how obvious the satire is to you, do not be surprised if people take it seriously.<ref name="usenet">{{cite newsgroup | url = https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!msg/net.announce/8CsYPJuZ4Hg/8em44sgCCVYJ | newsgroup=net.announce | title = Emily Post for Usenet | date=1 November 1983}} ([[Emily Post]])</ref>}} |
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==See also== |
==See also== |
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Revision as of 12:52, 18 May 2016
Poe's law is an Internet adage which states that, without a clear indicator of the author's intent, parodies of extreme views will be mistaken by some readers or viewers for sincere expressions of the parodied views.[1][2][3]
History
"Poe's law" was originally written by Nathan Poe in 2005, in a post on christianforums.com, an Internet forum about Christianity. The post was written in the context of a debate about creationism, where a previous poster had remarked to another user "Good thing you included the winky. Otherwise people might think you are serious."[4] Poe then replied, "Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is uttrerly [sic] impossible to parody a Creationist in such a way that someone won't mistake for the genuine article."[1] The original statement of Poe's law referred specifically to creationism, but it has since been generalized to apply to any kind of fundamentalism or extremism.[3]
In part, Poe's post reiterated advice often posted on Internet forums, about the need to clearly mark sarcasm and parody (e.g. with a smiling emoticon) to avoid confusion. As early as 1983, Jerry Schwarz, in a post on Usenet, wrote:
Avoid sarcasm and facetious remarks.
Without the voice inflection and body language of personal communication these are easily misinterpreted. A sideways smile, :-), has become widely accepted on the net as an indication that "I'm only kidding". If you submit a satiric item without this symbol, no matter how obvious the satire is to you, do not be surprised if people take it seriously.[5]
See also
References
- ^ a b Poe, Nathan (August 11, 2005). "Big contradictions in the evolution theory". christianforums.com. Archived from the original on May 31, 2014. Retrieved August 20, 2011.
Poe's Law: Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is uttrerly [sic] impossible to parody a Creationist in such a way that someone won't mistake for the genuine article.
- ^ Aikin, Scott F. (January 23, 2009). "Poe's Law, Group Polarization, and the Epistemology of Online Religious Discourse". Social Science Research Network. doi:10.2139/ssrn.1332169. SSRN 1332169.
- ^ a b Chivers, Tom (October 23, 2009). "Internet rules and laws: the top 10, from Godwin to Poe". The Telegraph.: "Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humour, it is impossible to create a parody of fundamentalism that someone won't mistake for the real thing."
- ^ Harcoff, Pete (August 10, 2005). "Big contradictions in the evolution theory". christianforums.com.
- ^ "Emily Post for Usenet". Newsgroup: net.announce. November 1, 1983. (Emily Post)