[anigbrowl]

Sarcasm is never friendly; it's necessarily at the expense of someone else. The simplest example is where someone makes a bold claim and someone else says 'sure, buddy...' to express contemptuous disbelief via the weakest possible form of assent. The claimant here wants to be believed, or at least agreed with.

Irony is imho much more complex and variegated, but a simple example would be any sort of self-deprecating humor, where someone is making fun of the mismatch between their aspirations and their capacity to achieve them. Irony isn't necessarily mean, whereas sarcasm is always a little bit mean even if it's mild.

[coldtea]

>Sarcasm is never friendly; it's necessarily at the expense of someone else

That doesn't preclude it from being friendly. Part of the friend experience is jockingly busting each others balls ocassionally.

[gsf_emergency_6]

Jockingly? Is this meant to suggest that brutal honesty is an adjacent pasttime of jocks?

The man who is brutally honest enjoys the brutality as much as the honesty. Possibly more.

Another thing in the domain of "friendly" that this brings to mind is "fire".

I have oft experienced this metaphorical friendly fire but they never seem to be as therapeutic as well-targeted irony :)

[coldtea]

>Jockingly? Is this meant to suggest that brutal honesty is an adjacent pasttime of jocks?

Well, I'm a jock, if I may say so myself, and I do ocassionally deploy brutal honesty.

Though I was talking about sarcasm and playful busting of balls in general, not necessarily through brutal honestly. Could be sarcastic and outlandish or fan, not necessarily honest.