I think the sarcasm indicator is useful especially for some neurodivergent folks who may not pick up on social cues well. And the sacram indicator does not in any way detract from the joke.
Yeah it does. If you have to explain the joke, it makes it not funny. In the real world, people don't have explicit sarcasm markers, you have up deduce it. As a neurodivergent person, I reflexively downvote on /s because coddling people isn't going to help them grow or deal with the real world.
In the real world we have things like intonation, facial expressions, body language, and other indicators to denote sarcasm.
On the internet it is very possible and often plausible that someone can very much believe what may appear to a reasonable person to be sarcasm. Having a crutch online does not equate to an equivalent crutch offline.
Anecdotally, neurodivergent folks I know prefer, and some even require, a sarcasm indicator online.
There's even more to it — real conversations are interactive, so if a statement causes confusion, it can be cleared up immediately. Forum posts, however, must stand alone for the most part.
You probably also know the person you're talking to irl, so it's way easier to make the judgement call on whether they're serious or not, compared to a random person online.
