“You genius” sounds like a compliment to me. A “funny” compliment. Would it be taken as sarcasm in the US? It really depends the tone I guess but in Australian english I wouldnt interpret it as sarcasm.
I think that changing it to something gramatically correct would make it into a compliment. “You are a genius” would make it positively charged. However, I would expect “you genius” to be something that, for instance, someone would exclaim when someone cuts their hand when trying to open an avocado. Meanwhile I think it would be strange to exclaim “you genius” when someone solves a partial differential equation. But it probably does rely on the tone.
“you genius” is what a lad would say when you’ve found a solution to a stupid problem you got yourselves into while drunk or something. A geniune compliment, but with some humour added in.
“You […]” makes pretty much anything an insult.
A positive word implies sarcasm. “You genius”. “You hero”.
A random noun drags out the negative aspect of the noun or implies lack of a brain. “You french fry”. “You paper bag”.
Adding a random adjective just strengthens the statement. “You british bathroom sink”. “You beautiful parking lot”.
Of couse it depends on delivery, and using random words makes some strange insults, but I rarely see “you […]” turn into a positive compliment.
This sounds like something Leslie Knope would call Ann Perkins.
I’ll take “beautiful parking lot” as a compliment and there is nothing you can do about it
“You genius” sounds like a compliment to me. A “funny” compliment. Would it be taken as sarcasm in the US? It really depends the tone I guess but in Australian english I wouldnt interpret it as sarcasm.
Context and tone matters.
“Hey, I figured out a way to cut our EC2 needs and scaled down, saving us a ton of money.” “You genius!”
vs.
“Ummm… I accidentally left half a dozen m8g.16xlarge nodes running… for the last four months.” “You… fucking genius.”
Well there’s a “fucking” there.
Well, yeah. For fucking emphasis. “Absolute” would have worked as well.
I think that changing it to something gramatically correct would make it into a compliment. “You are a genius” would make it positively charged. However, I would expect “you genius” to be something that, for instance, someone would exclaim when someone cuts their hand when trying to open an avocado. Meanwhile I think it would be strange to exclaim “you genius” when someone solves a partial differential equation. But it probably does rely on the tone.
“you genius” is what a lad would say when you’ve found a solution to a stupid problem you got yourselves into while drunk or something. A geniune compliment, but with some humour added in.