When I was an angsty youngster, mad at the world for making me black and smarter than everyone else, I had one consistent solace in my sea of wrath: sarcasm. At the time, I thought it was the Communication of Gods. It effectively alienated those not in my cabal and made my insecure, pimply being feel vastly superior to those that didn’t “Get me.” As I’ve grown older, though, I’ve determined that sarcasm is not the Communication of the Gods. In fact, it’s the most beta way to communicate and a strong signal that it’s user is a Shitty Person. Here’s why:

Everyone who gets bullied loves it. These people get everything they say put under a microscope for decades by bros in backwards hats who relentlessly torment them. After 10 years or so of getting everything you’ve said mocked, you’re going to start employing sarcasm as a defense mechanism. I can smell the remnants of your depressing childhood every time you sarcastically state “sex sucks.”

It rarely results in getting laid. Sarcasm may work with beta bitches, but for well adjusted chicks it’s the worst. If your potential love interest sees that you’re a sarcastic person, you won’t get taken serious when you’re all, “I want to fuck you” because they’ll be like, “Oh, he’s just being sarcastic again. I’m going to fuck this other dude that actually means it.” No amount of sarcasm is going to make masturbating yourself to sleep that night any less depressing.

It needlessly adds negativity to conversations. Language determines how we see the world. Some indigenous cultures have hundreds of words for snow because snow is their reality. Similarly, negative, bitter, sad people use negative language to describe positive situations. Negativity is their reality, so they sarcastically describe awesome double-rainbow sunshower afternoons as a “totally ugly midday break.”

It doesn’t translate into the internet. A French poet tried to add a sarcasm punctuation a couple hundred years ago, but that obviously never took off. Similarly, there is no sarcasm button because negative reinforcement (via sarcasm) is not an effective method to keep people engaged on the internet. Most users are going to take your sarcastic post at face value because we’ve got way cooler things to do than decode whether or not you really liked that NSHJ (no spit hand job).

It’s not funny. Have you ever actually laughed at someone being sarcastic since 7th grade? Like laughed out loud, beyond a little “hmmpf” when you realized you get the joke? Me neither.

It’s the language of the unimportant. Guess how many times you’ve seen Obama (or any public offical) say something sarcastically like, “Fuck it, let’s kill everyone on Wall Street and sell their belongings to help reduce the national budget.” Zero. That’s because when you’re an important person talking about important stuff, you don’t use sarcasm. Sarcasm is for catty, useless people to talk about equally useless, catty issues.

It’s a boring, defensive way of talking. If you’re really comfortable with your feelings and aren’t afraid to express them, just say what’s on your mind. It’s a great way to get things resolved.

– Jon is turning into his mother