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Sarcastic comments boost creativity, a study finds (2015)
- brenden2 7y agoI believe that. I bet comedy does, too.
- stared 7y agoSeriously?
- mettamage 7y agoI think this study has been fabricated. Yep, definitely feel more intelligent now. If this gets downvoted a lot then I do think that people stating to stay away from sarcasm are right ;-)
- capableweb 7y ago> If this gets downvoted a lot then I do think that people stating to stay away from sarcasm are right ;-) Or people don't find anything wrong with sarcasm, it's just your comment that is a low effort one.
- stanferder 7y agoI just interpret sarcasm as if it were sincere, treating every backhanded compliment as a forehanded one.
- mettamage 7y agoHmm... that might be true — it’s a bit subjective to judge it. But what I can tell you is that I made similar low effort comments that got high upvotes. The key difference is that those comments have a positive sentiment. I sometimes make comments like the above to test the hypothesis: negative sounding comments get downvoted. I find it interesting because I’ve learned that if I want to be relatable then I should be positive. Even when a negative comment is thematically appropriate (like the one above), the chance of it being downvoted is still quite high. I think it’s easier to be critical when negative affect is in play. I find it fascinating to see both sides of the story.
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- puggo 7y agoAnd verbal abuse can increase self defense abilities. (Was that creative enough?)
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- gerdesj 7y agoOscar Wilde was Irish and with that quote ("sarcasm is ..."), he was clearly taking the piss.
- aslhrewui 7y agoImportant PSA: sarcastic comments are against the HN rules. My main account was banned because I made a sarcastic comment regarding a HN (technological) holy cow.
- dang 7y agoWe don't ban accounts for that reason. Comments like this are always linkless, because supplying the relevant links for readers to make up their own minds would reveal a different story.
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- dang 7y agoDiscussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10595520 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10595520
- awinter-py 7y agopossibly because if you're not being sarcastic, you're engaging in self-censorship rather than saying sarcasm enhances creativity, this result could mean that being polite in the face of nonsense reduces creativity
- krapp 7y agoA compulsion to express sarcasm out of fear of self-censorship is, itself, a form of self-censorship based on a fallacious premise that sarcasm is somehow more sincere and "honest" than politeness.
- notacoward 7y agoDefinitely putting "creativity booster" on my next self-review. :D
- blackrock 7y agoIt's easier to criticize, than to actually do something. You can also get labeled as a jerk, and ostracized among your social group. You become known as "that guy.." Often, it's more fun to use it to share an inside joke with someone, when you use it to criticize someone else. When I give feedback, I like to preface it as a constructive criticism. When something doesn't affect me directly, I prefer to just let it slide, than to deal with the blowback. As with anything else, it's better to use it judiciously.
- mattrp 7y agoI can personally attest that sarcasm will get you labeled as a jerk, downvoted on hn and generally despised, but it will not boost your productivity.
- alexhutcheson 7y agoA recent paper found that people who endorsed cynical beliefs were more likely to be treated disrespectfully by others: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/01/the-vicious-cycle-of-disrespect-and-cynicism.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/01/th...