Welcome to "What Next?", The Week's contest about current events.
Click here for the results of the previous contest: Outsourcing
Last week's question: A critic for The New Yorker recently complained that "irony now condemns us all to imagine that every email or text might actually, secretly, be poking fun at us." We asked you to come up with a standard, one-sentence disclaimer that could be added to emails and texts to assure the recipient that you're not being ironic.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
THE WINNER: Objects in this message are as they appear
Jennifer Pocius Davis, Scranton PA
SECOND PLACE: Personal insecurities should in no way distort the intended, literal meaning of the above written text
Matt Schirripa, Carnegie PA
THIRD PLACE: No fun intended
Bonny Nofi, Santa Rosa CA
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
All ironies and sarcasms herein are flagged with appropriate emoticons
Jim Strossman, North Rose, NY
Content read between these lines exists solely in the eyes of the beholder
Carma Keats, San Francisco, CA
No recipients were mocked in the writing of this e-mail
Kathy Ossman, Cincinatti OH
Click here to obtain the sender's sincerity rating. Additional fees may apply.
Lorri G. Nandrea (via e-mail)
SWS (Sent With Sincerity)
Dina Cohen, New York, NY
Seriously, Dude
Priscilla Zandi, Florence OR
Please note that any sarcasm found in this e-mail was unintentional and detected only by your acute attention to nuance
Barbara Goulet, Minot, ME
Any irony is Siri's fault
Rhonda MacLeod, Tallahassee, FL
Click here to find out how to use Irony Scrub to make your e-mails as irony-free as this one
Dallas Lea, Poughkeepsie, NY
This message has been tested by e-magnets and contains no irony
David Gorfinkle, Salem, MA
All text is permanent press — no irony needed
Carla Holtz, Stanardsville VA
