"Emoticons and html-tags are a completely mistaken approach to irony. A statement’s possibility of being misconstrued seems to me to be the essence of irony. By some silent agreement the writer and the reader, construe a third person in the conversation, a hypothetical figure, the dupe, who does in fact take the ironical statement literally, and the joke is really on them."
Sarcasm, on the other hand, is the downfall of civilisation. 'ooh, run, it's sarcasm.'.