darquegk said: "Nowadays the demographic is more spread out, and the “sarcasm/cluelessness” vibe you describe is the dominant style of discourse on Reddit, a site so all-inclusive that it’s known as “the front page of the internet.” You can bemoan whatever happened to class, but the internet is speaking a different language today."
I don't really buy into the generational explanation. First, I am not really talking about the "classic era of this board" {and boy do I put that in quotes LOL} but about much more recently. I wouldn't deny SOME influence but I would not write it off to that. Second, I know a ton of young people who are not only well educated but knowledgeable about the theatre and who know how to use the internet to avoid embarrassing themselves by appearing naive and ignorant. Some of those people are even on this board regularly. Third, a lot of the clueless people and most of the sarcastic people I am talking about do not appear to be "young" based on the ongoing context of their posts here. What prompts me is not some reverse ageism but the hope that at least some people who post things when they don't know what they are talking about, and who don't lift a finger to avoid embarrassing themselves, will think before they type, for their own benefit as much as the overall value of the board. This is about cluelessnes etc. The sarcasm seems, tbh, to be more of a reaction to the cluelessness and although some of it is lame, I am not really faulting it as unreasonable.