Welcome to Sarcasm, Please Enjoy Your Stay

“I provide much needed sarcasm.” — Anya (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

Sarcasm is my raison d’etre.

If you don’t know what sarcasm is, please look it up in the dictionary and SHUT UP.

If you don’t know what raison d’être is, please look it up in the dictionary and SHUT UP.

Every word I write or speak is said with love but comes with the following legal disclaimer:

‘Warning: may contain traces of sarcasm.’

You have been warned.

I’m only laughing on the outside

I was never the cool kid — hence my narcissism, sarcasm and misanthropy.

If I open my mouth, and words come out, I’m probably being sarcastic.

You ever noticed how social anxiety makes you seem incredibly antisocial?

Hello irony — meet bitterness and sarcasm.

They wondered when you’d bother to show up.

Sarcasm. Because reasons.

They say that love is a universal language. Sadly, sarcasm isn’t.

Would you believe that there are actually people in the world who don’t know how to parse sarcasm? THOSE PEOPLE SCARE ME.

Why do people mistake humour for hostility? Where I come from, wit, snark and sarcasm are the height of friendliness.

Sometimes I wish the world was divided into two groups: those who get sarcasm, and those who otherwise get lined up against a wall and shot.

But some people might suggest that I’m a little angry.

The north and south of sarcasm

There’s one thing we get up north that they don’t get down south: SARCASM.

The southern sense of humour — if there is such a thing — seems very different to me as I grew up with bitter northern sarcasm.

There’s no malice in sarcasm (at least among northerners).

Northerners use sarcasm in a friendly way but southerners don’t get it and assume we’re being mean.

Southerners are such a delicate bunch — they get easily offended by honesty, sarcasm or direct questions.

This is of course where my southern friends jump up and say they’ve got an excellent sense of humour — but they don’t.

Whenever I’m down south, I miss the north: I miss the rain, the misery and the crushing sense of disappointment.

Mostly, I miss the sarcasm — southerners piss me off.

Sometimes I think a southerner’s being sarcastic, but it’s just northern anthropomorphism: I so want to believe they get sarcasm that I project it on to them.

When I told a friend my sarcasm chip was faulty, they said: “You’ve been living away from the north too long — go back and get it fixed!”

Dear Southerners, I find your lack of humour disturbing.

Also your callousness, apathy and inability to understand sarcasm.

YOU PISS ME OFF.

Yes, I’m being sarcastic.

Some of my best friends are southerners.

But anywhere that finds sarcasm distasteful or incomprehensible is inhospitable and uninhabitable.

In short: I should never have left the north.

Life’s much better here — the tea and sarcasm keep me warm.

Yorkshire wit

I’m not English, I’m from West Yorkshire: we subsist on a steady diet of tea and disappointment. Our hobbies include sarcasm and casual violence.

Oscar Wilde said: “Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.”

To which a Yorkshireman would reply: “That’s fighting talk where we come from, ya big Jessy.”

Yorkshire people are said to be friendly but bloody-minded, sarcastic, tight-fisted and prefer our county to our country.

What most people don’t understand is WE’RE PROUD OF IT.

Sarcasm is genetic

Sarcasm runs deep in my family.

When my brother read my first published piece in a newspaper he said: “I’m very impressed, you sounded just like a real journalist!”

The sarcasm is strong with this one.

I used to listen to death metal but got bored of it and gave the CDs to my brother — so it’s my fault he turned out the way he did.

Are you an American or an American’t?

American: a person on whom sarcasm and self-awareness are both lost.

Great — another group of wingnuts for me to unintentionally annoy and enrage through sarcasm — except these ones are armed.

I used to think Americans don’t get sarcasm. I say Americans, I mean most humans. I say sarcasm, I mean my sense of humour.

Then I woke up in a strange parallel world where Americans love sarcasm and English people can’t take a joke — or Twitter as I like to call it.

I found people who are more sarcastic than me. IN AMERICA. At last the torch has been passed.

Their sarcasm has restored my faith in humanity — or at least reset it to its default factory settings.

As a subeditor I was told I’d picked up American grammar — which means that somewhere there’s an American riddled with sarcasm.

It’s official: on Twitter there are Americans who understand, use and appreciate sarcasm… You’re welcome.

I’ve decided to move to America — where my sarcasm’s appreciated.

I still worry that my sarcasm will get me shot at the airport as a suspected terrorist or something.

But the internet has permanently disavowed me of the notion that Americans don’t get sarcasm. I mean that in a good way.

Every sarcastic American friend I have is a New Yorker, admittedly, so that may have something to do with it.

Sarcasm used to be a friend of mine

I was once mistaken for a spambot who ‘just tweets funny things.’

It turns out that most self-proclaimed sarcastic twitter accounts are spambots.

James is a sad panda.

That’s why I’m done with sarcasm — it’s lollipops and rainbows from here on out.

Because that’s what the world really needs — less sarcasm.

Ok, that didn’t last too long.

I stand in solidarity with the people of Sarcasm.

Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by hats of cynicism and gloves of disenchantment. Socks of sarcasm sold separately.

There’s nothing I want to say on social media that isn’t venomous sarcasm — I should probably take a vow of silence. Or write a book or something.

Ok, I take that back. There’s always time to be sarcastic. And if it annoys people who don’t appreciate sarcasm, then it’s time well spent.

I guarantee that all of my sarcasm is 100% original except for the repeated Bill Hicks references.

Would like to meet

Frequently Asked Question: Who do you follow on Twitter?

Answer: Friendly creative types, mostly writers, artists or journalists. Sarcasm preferred but not essential.

When someone says something stupid I assume they’re joking. When I joke they assume I’m stupid. And when I’m sarcastic that I’m criminally insane.

I love it when people make so many in-jokes that from the outside it sounds like gibberish.

It occurs to me now that my earliest exposure to sarcasm and dry humour was probably through The Magic Roundabout. This explains everything.

Would like to meet: smart, funny women who love sarcasm and have a thing for long-haired men with northern accents. I ask on behalf of a friend.

When life gives you lemons, kick life in the nuts

You ever noticed how people who say they’ve got ‘an excellent sense of humour’ don’t?

Some people don’t have a sense of humour. It’s perfectly ok to fuck with those people.

Nothing in this world is scarier than people without a sense of humour.

The universe has a wicked sense of humour.

The universe is bitter, cruel and sarcastic — sadly, at the expense of most humans.

Life makes much more sense once you realise that the universe has a warped sense of humour and is trying to kill you for shits and giggles.

Sarcasm Prayer

Life is a joke. Death is the punchline. Get over yourselves.

Please join me in my Sarcasm Prayer:

Grant me the sarcasm to the mock things I cannot change, the wit to change the things I can, and the cynicism to know the difference.

James Garside is an independent journalist, author, and travel writer. Join Chapter 23 for the inside track on all their creative projects and insights about life, work, and travel.