Why is the dominant tone of social media ironic, sarcastic, snarky -- is there a means to be sincere and straightforward (or dare I say, nice)? Is this general linguistic change due to social media?

Hello, good people of Reddit. I wonder (and maybe some scholar has studied this, with data or a theory, or, preferably, both data and a theory): why is the dominant tone of the internet, and perhaps our era, ironic and sarcastic? Although I can be ironic and sarcastic, I don’t want to be like that on a constant basis. But you cannot even say “sincerely” without it seeming snarky, i.e., not sincere at all. Everything straightforward is interpreted in this manner — you are assumed to be angry, mocking, or angrily mocking.

My hypothesis, without empirical evidence other than my own experience (i.e., anecdote/speculation) is almost all of us here, with very rare exceptions, are anonymous, strangers, and not likely even to interact more than the once as anonymous strangers. I am aware, from undergraduate social science courses and game theory, everything changes if you know people and you expect to interact with them as “repeat players.” That is why road rage is common, but you try to be decent to neighbors, and so if you flip off another driver and then find out it’s the guy/gal next door in a new car it’s embarrassing.

Another possibility is that so much of communication is nonverbal. The linguists I know say their colleague, Albert Mehrabian, who came up with that concept is right even if he overstated the claim. In the absence of eye contact, facial expression, "body language," and such cues, we assume the worst. Hence emojis, which in my opinion are a poor substitute.

I welcome all thoughts, sincerely.

Addendum. I have a meta-question. Do linguists concern themselves with questions of tone such as this? (If not, perhaps my post will be deleted, and rightly so.)