In internet / social media commenting culture there's the sort of assumption that's so subtly and almost ubiquitously present...
In internet / social media commenting culture there’s the sort of assumption that’s so subtly and almost ubiquitously present that I can only really put a finger on it in its absence. This almost-universally expected element for comments and statuses in an online context could be labeled wit I suppose, which is vague but I can’t quite think of any other single word or brief phrase that captures it. The expectation is present both in social media statuses and in comments under statuses or in many types of online forums.
The expectation is that whatever you’re writing, whatever point you’re making, is either very heavily serious/sentimental (e.g. announcing the death of someone close to you or deploring a tragedy in the news) or a commentary, either as part of the discourse or a relating of someone happening in one’s own life, which must have a sharp (and preferably somewhat original and non-cliche-sounding) point to it. There has to be some subtle degree of humor behind the point being made, at least if it isn’t a purely argumentative response to someone else’s view. There is typically some very minor inference left for the audience as to whatever broader point (political, personal, or whatever) the commenter/status-writer is gesturing towards. Things are never spelled out 100% bluntly and baldly somehow.
And the reason I’m having trouble describing what I mean in the above two paragraphs is that I believe this is ingrained in our social media and discourse culture as such a low-key undercurrent that I don’t consciously notice it the vast majority of the time – again, it’s more that I notice its absence at once on the rare occasion when it’s absent. Recently it’s been on my mind because I’ve been perusing a small online space where it’s conspicuously absent by (of all random things) gradually going through the archive of old For Better or For Worse comics on the website GoComics: occasionally there are commenters who post under these comics and there’s somehow a complete lack of attempt to be incisive or make a new point or do anything but straight-up explain the joke a lot of the time (here and here are typical examples). I’m oversimplifying over thousands of examples obviously but there overall seems to be a complete lack of “wittiness culture” in that space, and I honestly can’t think of any other online space I frequent where this is the norm – the closest I can come to it is the way boomer-age people often seem to act on Facebook (but the regular commenters under the FBoFW comics come across as quite young). I notice something similar on the Peanuts archives at GoComics, except that there are more commenters such that every day there’s exactly one featured comment available which on average is of only marginally higher intellectual quality.
I feel like I’m still not quite getting at what I mean very well, but maybe someone else knows what I’m talking about and can describe it better than I can?
Noticeable by the reaction to its violations, generally viewed as somewhere between “irritatingly pedantic” and “mansplaining”.
OH the thing! where, like, paying the “wit tax” grants you social license to be heard without accused of feeling entitled to being heard
I guess ‘wit’ and humour / leaving gaps for the reader to infer, per what OP was saying, is one way of signalling “I’m not assuming I deserve your attention!”
I wonder if playing naive and/or wearing your heart on your sleeve or sounding super unconfident is the same general kind of social ritual? at least in terms of intended effect?