Attention social media wing nuts: Offend no more. Let your witty and derisive chatter flow like melted butter over the good humor of your readers. \Sartalics\ is about to enter the social media fray.
The temptation to hold back a sarcastic comment while using social media is often too great; many writers just let it rip. Many readers take offense not knowing the quip was launched tongue-in-cheek.
Problem: Social media platforms presently don’t allow you to style text. For example, using font styles to bold or italicized text helps writers insert the equivalent of a tone of voice, even a body movement, as if speaking in the physical world—similar to WRITING IN ALL CAPS as the equivalent of shouting at someone.
Solution: Sartalics—a new font style of backwards italics, indicating you mean the opposite of what you just wrote. Until social media platforms incorporate code, you can "use" this font by placing a sarcastic word or phrase in between backslashes. Now, you can be your ‘ole sarcastic self and be understood as just that, not some flamer cloaked in bits and bytes.
Check out the sartalics movement, then join the Twitterblitz to get the attention of the Social Media kingpins. They are the ones who can instruct coders to transform words book-ended in backslashes into words styled in backwards italics, or, sartalics!
So, editorial style guide managers, now you can \lord over\ all sarcastic content!
Thanks go to Bette Frick, The Text Doctor®, for posting this latest-and-greatest language trend in her newsletter.
Further reading (also from Bette’s newsletter):
Sartalics: Company Develops Sarcasm Font (Huff Post)
Have a Snarkfest with Sartalics, the Font Designed for Sarcasm (MediaPost)
Rita Braun writes and edits B2B publications for people who research, teach, market, and sell. Take a look at her portfolio here, and contact her here.
