Irony is central to the zeitgeist of my generation. And I think it is high time we all realise that what started as healthy cynicism and rejection of hypocrisy is now an insidious concept that is damaging our art and relationships.
Whereas irony used to be used to expose insincerity in others, it is now used to hide our own true feelings. And it is pervasive: you see irony in clothing (“Of course I don’t like this t-shirt; it’s ironic”), in film (“it’s almost like the studio couldn’t afford another x-man”), in TV (Frank Underwood mockingly breaking the fourth wall) and in common figures of speech (the ever-so-slightly mocking “aww” when we witness something sweet (because God forbid that we genuinely seem touched) or the “I’m not going to say x/y/z” which is of course nothing but a way of saying x/y/z at the same time as recognising that x/y/z is a trite thing to say – hence killing two stones with one bird: saying what you wanted to say in the first place while shielding yourself from the criticism that saying what you wanted to say is hackneyed or unpopular).
My thesis is that irony is like a drug or alcohol: in small doses it’s fun. In large doses it desensitises (reports that in very large doses it kills are unsubstantiated, unless “kills” is used metaphorically). We have taken irony so far that to talk about something in earnest, to believe in an ideal (or to even use the words “believe in an ideal”) is uncool. It’s lame. It’s taking things too seriously. It’s “wow, this conversation is getting too serious, what did you guys do over the weekend?”
I have several problems with this: a) at its core, most irony today is a pathetic defence mechanism. If you pretend to take nothing seriously, no-one can hurt you. If you never expose what matters to you, you are shielding yourself from ridicule or contempt. This is hypocritical: your ironic demeanour screams “I don’t care about anything” but its whole raison d’etre is that you care too much that others might reject the real you*. Which links to my second concern, that b) if you hide those things you care about, you are inoculating yourself against harm but also against meaningful relationships. Sure, you may have a network of friends with whom you share a laugh – but you know deep down that these people don’t really know you, they don’t know the things that really matter to you. They only know the ironic, taking-nothing-seriously persona you’re projecting. And c) if everyone is afraid to acknowledge that some things are important to them, art dies, it becomes jejune and tired. Art is supposed to explore beauty and find meaning – if our starting point is that to acknowledge beauty might open us to ridicule, or that to find meaning is naïve, art will end up a formulaic activity (the same Marvel movie for the 20th time or yet another Oscar-baiting biopic) or a misguided attempt to shock and provoke. Finally, d) this whole thing is self-perpetuating: we cannot tolerate people who are earnest, because they make us feel uncomfortable. They are so radically different (and usually happy); so to justify our own way of being, we must reduce them – label them geeks, nerds or naïve fools.
Of course, this is an exaggeration. No-one is ironic all of the time, and we all have people to whom we open up, who really know us. But it’s not as exaggerated as you might think – if you think about your own friends or self, you will find many examples of all the behaviours above – you will see you know people who are thoughtful and idealistic in private, but only joke around and dismiss their own ideals as naïve in public or friends who dismiss others because they are passionate about something seemingly silly (English grammar, dungeons & dragons or comic books for example).
I am not the only one who has an issue with this – people far smarter than me have raised the same objections to irony. But it’s telling that their criticism of it has been, in a meta-head-explosive kind of way, ironic – e.g. Matt Stone and Tray Parker have written a South Park episode where Randy can’t stop being ironic and DF Wallace wrote a massive post-modernist book to criticise post-modernism (at least, that’s what I got out of it). Perhaps they felt they could have a bigger impact this way – they realised that a heart-felt (another uncool expression, btw) message would be cynically dismissed.
So, to conclude: I am not saying we should all stop being ironic. Like I said, in small doses, irony is funny. Let’s just tone it tone it down a bit; let’s stop overusing it. Let’s stop pretending we don’t care about anything, and stop mocking those who are enthusiastic about something. And please, please, let’s stop killing interesting conversation with “this is getting serious, let’s talk about the weekend, tgif”.
* I can’t resist taking a dig at Deadpool: its whole self-referential and self-depreciating narrative serves exactly this purpose. In fact, Deadpool epitomises everything I think is bad about modern culture – not only does it (attempt to) negate its own weaknesses by pre-emptively referencing them by breaking the fourth wall (“Ryan Reynolds isn’t a good actor”, “the plot is clichéd”, “there aren’t even good cameos”) but it explicitly makes the one genuinely nice, kind character (Colossus) look like a moron.
Whereas irony used to be used to expose insincerity in others, it is now used to hide our own true feelings. And it is pervasive: you see irony in clothing (“Of course I don’t like this t-shirt; it’s ironic”), in film (“it’s almost like the studio couldn’t afford another x-man”), in TV (Frank Underwood mockingly breaking the fourth wall) and in common figures of speech (the ever-so-slightly mocking “aww” when we witness something sweet (because God forbid that we genuinely seem touched) or the “I’m not going to say x/y/z” which is of course nothing but a way of saying x/y/z at the same time as recognising that x/y/z is a trite thing to say – hence killing two stones with one bird: saying what you wanted to say in the first place while shielding yourself from the criticism that saying what you wanted to say is hackneyed or unpopular).
My thesis is that irony is like a drug or alcohol: in small doses it’s fun. In large doses it desensitises (reports that in very large doses it kills are unsubstantiated, unless “kills” is used metaphorically). We have taken irony so far that to talk about something in earnest, to believe in an ideal (or to even use the words “believe in an ideal”) is uncool. It’s lame. It’s taking things too seriously. It’s “wow, this conversation is getting too serious, what did you guys do over the weekend?”
I have several problems with this: a) at its core, most irony today is a pathetic defence mechanism. If you pretend to take nothing seriously, no-one can hurt you. If you never expose what matters to you, you are shielding yourself from ridicule or contempt. This is hypocritical: your ironic demeanour screams “I don’t care about anything” but its whole raison d’etre is that you care too much that others might reject the real you*. Which links to my second concern, that b) if you hide those things you care about, you are inoculating yourself against harm but also against meaningful relationships. Sure, you may have a network of friends with whom you share a laugh – but you know deep down that these people don’t really know you, they don’t know the things that really matter to you. They only know the ironic, taking-nothing-seriously persona you’re projecting. And c) if everyone is afraid to acknowledge that some things are important to them, art dies, it becomes jejune and tired. Art is supposed to explore beauty and find meaning – if our starting point is that to acknowledge beauty might open us to ridicule, or that to find meaning is naïve, art will end up a formulaic activity (the same Marvel movie for the 20th time or yet another Oscar-baiting biopic) or a misguided attempt to shock and provoke. Finally, d) this whole thing is self-perpetuating: we cannot tolerate people who are earnest, because they make us feel uncomfortable. They are so radically different (and usually happy); so to justify our own way of being, we must reduce them – label them geeks, nerds or naïve fools.
Of course, this is an exaggeration. No-one is ironic all of the time, and we all have people to whom we open up, who really know us. But it’s not as exaggerated as you might think – if you think about your own friends or self, you will find many examples of all the behaviours above – you will see you know people who are thoughtful and idealistic in private, but only joke around and dismiss their own ideals as naïve in public or friends who dismiss others because they are passionate about something seemingly silly (English grammar, dungeons & dragons or comic books for example).
I am not the only one who has an issue with this – people far smarter than me have raised the same objections to irony. But it’s telling that their criticism of it has been, in a meta-head-explosive kind of way, ironic – e.g. Matt Stone and Tray Parker have written a South Park episode where Randy can’t stop being ironic and DF Wallace wrote a massive post-modernist book to criticise post-modernism (at least, that’s what I got out of it). Perhaps they felt they could have a bigger impact this way – they realised that a heart-felt (another uncool expression, btw) message would be cynically dismissed.
So, to conclude: I am not saying we should all stop being ironic. Like I said, in small doses, irony is funny. Let’s just tone it tone it down a bit; let’s stop overusing it. Let’s stop pretending we don’t care about anything, and stop mocking those who are enthusiastic about something. And please, please, let’s stop killing interesting conversation with “this is getting serious, let’s talk about the weekend, tgif”.
* I can’t resist taking a dig at Deadpool: its whole self-referential and self-depreciating narrative serves exactly this purpose. In fact, Deadpool epitomises everything I think is bad about modern culture – not only does it (attempt to) negate its own weaknesses by pre-emptively referencing them by breaking the fourth wall (“Ryan Reynolds isn’t a good actor”, “the plot is clichéd”, “there aren’t even good cameos”) but it explicitly makes the one genuinely nice, kind character (Colossus) look like a moron.
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