Don't misrepresent facts, and I won't get sarcastic at you.

[feuervogel]

If you post overblown hyperbolic things like "Legalize 23andMe!" because it needs to be saved from the FDA's predatory regulations, yes, I'm going to be sarcastic at you.

ETA: This essay discusses an essay by a conservative columnist in which he engages in hyperbole about what liberals believe/want. Hyperbole (and straw-man argumentation) is pretty common among conservative columnists.

Comments

[steuard.livejournal.com]

The trouble with snark and sarcasm along these lines, as I see it, is that it can send a pretty hostile message. I quite enjoy snarky commentary in a lot of circumstances, but I recognize that there's a hefty dose of mockery involved. Its implication generally seems to be that its target is incompetent (snark about Twilight, for instance) or even malicious in some way (say, snark about Catholic bishops covering up sexual abuse). It can be a very effective and amusing way of exposing those cases and registering frustration about them.

But by the same token, it's a pretty darn poisonous way of interacting with friends. Describing Beth's post (since that's what we're talking about here, right?) as a "misrepresentation of the FDA's action" (and your accusation of "trolling") makes it pretty clear that you think she was deliberately misstating the facts to make a political point that you disagree with. (The far less accusatory word "misunderstanding" was available in place of "misrepresentation", after all, if you just wanted to imply that she was accidentally wrong about it.) Now, if you're right about that accusation, maybe calling it out is something that a friend should do, to make it clear that such behavior isn't acceptable. But in that case, I would tend to think that a more serious tone ("Hey, what you're doing isn't cool.") would get the point across better than sarcastic mockery. Meanwhile, if by chance you're wrong and there was no deliberate bending of the truth, it's an awfully serious charge to have made against a friend's personal integrity. (And even if you only intended your comments to imply merely carelessness or incompetence, mockery for that still isn't the sort of thing that would strengthen a friendship.)

On another note, I have seen plenty of liberal bloggers and columnists who overstate and demonize "what conservatives believe/want". That generally upsets me substantially more than the conservative hyperbole that you're talking about, because the straw-man arguments from liberals are tainting the public perception of beliefs that I care deeply about. I have the sense that today's tendency toward echo-chamber media consumption has made this sort of thing more prominent on all sides, and I find it seriously frustrating.