Why do people not get satire? or satirical responses?

Answer 1

Maybe the stick is too far inside

Answer 2

Mostly, I guess, it just goes over their heads, or doesn't penetrate their skulls. Sometimes that's just because they are dense, but it can also be that the use of satire or satirical responses seems to be a lost art these days. It's much easier to be rude, obscene, or just plain "in your face" than it is to go through the mental effort to give a witty answer. So sometimes, people just aren't used to hearing satire, and can't recognize. Also, in some cases, the target of your zinger knows they've just been lanced, figure that if they pretend not to "get it," you get no satisfaction from your skillful use of the language.
There's probably other reasons, but they are left for others to figure out.

Answer 3

I'm with Warren H.

Also, I've heard some things from people in real life that sound an awful lot like some of the things people post here as satire. I'd rather take the question seriously and be wrong than assume the writer was joking and be wrong.

Answer 4

Kind of hard for some people to know the difference between satire and seriousness without hearing a voice and seeing body language.

Answer 5

Satire is often cultural. If you grow up in a society that uses satire in order to make a point or simply to be humorous, you welcome it and enjoy it. The British are great satirists. Americans much less so. Canadians are somewhere in-between.

Here's a little fun satire for you. A musician's joke that I heard from my son. He's studying jazz in collage at the moment.

Q: What's the definition of jazz?

A-1: An African American musician’s insufficient check.

A-2: A white musician’s insufficient jizm.

- or -

Did you hear about the bass player who was so poor, his girlfriend had to get a second job?

Answer 6

Because that's the point of good satire - it can be mistaken for sincerity at points. REALLY good satire will make even the quickest-witted buy it for at least a few seconds.

Answer 7

Satire requires thought. And maybe the right mood. Most people make a snap judgment based on what they think you said. Folks like that just think you're being sarcastic.

Answer 8

"Satire" is not only a really really hard word, but it's also confusing! How am I supposed to understand what such a long word means? Giggle! (This is the part when I start bouncing up and down)

Answer 9

You lose the inflection when you write it so it isn't so obvious. They also don't want to catch that you are belittling their position. Just label it so they can.

Answer 10

Stupidity mostly.