Given the response to my previous article, I fear it is true. Irony is dead. Destroyed, I am sure, by the very same unimaginative suits that are slowly turning the world into a giant shopping centre. White Capitalists perhaps, or maybe the Media Moguls. Who else would have the evil omnipotence to rid the world of a complex literary device? Particularly one as potentially upsetting to their structured worldview as irony. Sarcasm will follow shortly and last to go, unless we hold onto it with every iota of strength and cunning that we have left after long days of punching information into the grinding cogs of their blasphemous machinery, will be our collective sense of humor; sucked through that giant foil pipe that they have aimed right at our heads as we speak. If you have already constructed an aluminum hat under the false assumption that your brainwaves will be left unaltered, think again. I was wearing mine while watching an old John Vlismas stand-up routine just the other day and I didn’t laugh once; a sure sign that they have updated their technology to bypass the reflective properties of aluminum. Still, brave soldiers, we must defend our ability to laugh at ourselves and others at all costs.
There was a time when irony was the acceptable failsafe mechanism for social faux pas’. For example:
You’re sitting at a table dining with a group of potential clients/female suitors/police officers and you are asked, “Do you smoke, Archibald?”
“Only crack,” you reply in a clumsy attempt at humor to diffuse some of the nervous energy remaining after that mysterious pervasive smell of cabbage has finally subsided, “but hey, at least it’s not heroin! “
This is followed either by the awkward sounds of cutlery clinking on plates or the awkward sounds of guns being drawn if you chose the third option above. “What kind of deranged fool are we dealing with here?” their eyes say.
“I’m kidding, I was just being ironic,” you would say as a last ditch attempt to regain social composure. You might even burst into raucous laughter to encourage your fellow diners to do the same, possibly follow it with “Got ya!” coupled with a fraternal jab at the shoulder nearest you. Instantly the mood would be lifted, the women might pick up their glasses, not quite sure what to make of you, but subtly intrigued. The cops would holster their guns, preferably not intrigued at all, and dinner would continue in a polite and mild vain.
If your lack of social etiquette requires a casual reliance on the use of irony as an excuse for your words or actions, your days are numbered. The very same polite diners, troubled heavily by the world’s problems, will turn on you like a pit of hungry pet snakes. You’ll be crucified and your entrails will be hung in the corners of the restaurant by kitchen hooks to serve as a reminder to other diners what happens to those foolish enough to indulge in ironic rhetoric.
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