Can it be done without whatever was written looking stupid?
For example, if you were to tell an ambiguous sounding sarcastic comment, I'm sure it'd look stupid if you used the emphasis, strong and underline parameters in excess or any punctuation marks other than the period, such as the exclamation point. Using smileys probably won't help, either. In this hypothetical situation; people really won't get it's a sarcastic comment if it doesn't have tone. What would you do?
Most over-the-BBS jokes fail because of this; because they lack the depth, the tone, the emphasis and the pitch that normal speech would have. But, a joke failing on the reader also has something to do with how the reader read it, right? Whenever one reads a forum post they'd imagine it as if they said it, and of course this'd ruin the joke if they imagined it in a way that the writer didn't intend-- well, that, and the reader's sense of humor being different from the writer's.
This is really quite a tough one.
How can you put in emphasis, depth and tone through text?
My guess is that it's impossible, really. But I want to see if someone else can do it.
Anyone?
The real question though, is why would I go through such lengths over such a trivial thing?