Why is the myth that sarcastic insults aren’t used in Japan so widespread?

Especially online you will see honorifics used to mock people or countries like 女性様 or アメリカ様. It’s not so common for people to be as rude in real life but it still happens sometimes (Ishihara’s infamous “どこの人間何だ貴様!” comes to mind). So why do learners pretend this never happens? Not everyone is polite and serious in Japan all the time. Is it just that they don’t have the language ability to understand it, or that they tried to make a similar comment in poor Japanese, and no one understood?

7 comments
  1. Japanese dictionary on 女性様:

    https://www.weblio.jp/content/%E5%A5%B3%E6%80%A7%E6%A7%98

    女性の権利や男女平等が意識される世の中において、女性に対する(逆差別的な)配慮や好待遇が生じている、そうした状況を享受している女性を指す皮肉めいた言い方。おおむね、女性が自ら「様」付けするかのような傲岸な印象を醸すニュアンスで用いられる。

  2. I also usually feel like my japanese friends use irony and sarcasm, just not quite in the sane way, and they don’t call it that

  3. Sarcasm is less prevalent in Japan than in the US. No idea where you picked sarcastic insults specifically because that is the only kind of sarcasm recognised by most Japanese I feel like. With cultural influence sarcasm is recognised more and more.

  4. I’ve personally never met a Japanese person who understands irony or sarcasm unless they lived abroad and picked it up there

  5. Sarcasm doesn’t exist in the same way. お嬢様 roughly works in the same way as calling someone “princess”, but not all sarcastic statements that work in English work in Japanese.

    Same as how not all metaphors line up. Japanese doesn’t have “it’s raining cats and dogs” to mean hard rain. So saying 猫と犬の雨が降っている would be taken literally.

    Just the same, sarcastic phrases and tones in English will not inherently work in Japanese.

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