It has been my experience that sarcasm is mostly used to belittle the person being spoken (written) to.
A stranger who uses sarcasm toward me is asking to get to know me???my angry side that is.
However, when a friendship is already established, then sarcasm becomes more of a ?guys together? thing.
Bottom line I suppose is that people have to earn the right to be sarcastic toward each other, based on knowledge of each other, IMO.