HackMD
Post-Irony
tags: Higher Ironies Project
Post-Irony Defined
Like Meta-Irony, Post-Irony is an attempt to answer two questions:
- How can one be subversive in an age when traditional irony is the norm?
- What remains when deconstruction is, itself, deconstructed?
Meta-Irony answered these questions as follows, respectively:
- By rejecting the notion of having any sincere message whatsoever.
- Lol nothing (total agnosticism).
But Post-Irony, while it addresses the same questions, poses very different answers:
- In an age of traditional irony, one can be subversive by actually being sincere, and thereby defying the expectations of traditional irony
- Once deconstruction has been deconstructed, then the deconstructive impulse need not weigh on people any further; sincerity can return.
This is Post-Irony: a form of irony that subverts the expectation that traditional irony will be used by actually conveying an original sincere point that traditional irony has previously subverted. It accomplishes this by using language or situations that appear to be traditionally ironic, thereby setting the expectation that the sincere object of this language or situation is going to be mocked, but then proceeds to subvert that expectation by actually conveying the original sincere thing, whatever it happens to be.
Consider the following example by the artist Sharpwriter on Deviantart.com:
This image is not simply sincere. Obviously, it portrays Abraham Lincoln in a situation well removed from anything that ever happened in reality. It appears to be using the mocking, over-the-top sort of exaggeration that is typical of traditional irony, such as in Tensions Mount or Charlie the Unicorn.
However, this image does have a sincere message, and that message is not simply the opposite of the message the image appears to be conveying.
This is important: traditional irony contains a sincere message, but that sincere message is the opposite of the message the traditional irony appears to have on a surface level. On a surface level, the message of Tensions Mount seems to be that North Korea actually nuked all of Asia, and this should be taken as a source of mild concern. The true, sincere message of Tensions Mount is the opposite of this: people ought to take the threats of aggressive nations much more seriously, even when the damage they threaten to do is far less than the murder of 4 billion people.
But here, in the above image of Honest Abe, the sincere message seems to be: "Abraham Lincoln was a kick-ass dude." And this is not the opposite of the message that the image appears to be parodying with the over-the-top image of Abraham Lincoln riding a grizzly bear and wielding a modern assault rifle; it is the same message. The image looks, at first glance, as though its intention is to parody the idea that Abraham Lincoln was a kick-ass dude, but in reality that is precisely the sincere message it intends to convey. This image parodies its own sincere message, but sticks to it.
Self-Parody and the Rise of "Based"
Post-Irony accepts the fact that everything sincere will inevitably be mocked, and embraces it. By mocking its own sincere point, yet sticking to it, it defangs deconstruction and subverts the expectation of traditional irony.
(Courtesy of r/Libertarianmemes–-this meme parodies the Libertarian tendency to prefer freedom over all else by portraying "Dangerous Liberty" as crack cocaine, but it was posted by a Libertarian on a Libertarian subreddit. It is therefore a self-parody and Post-Ironic)
One may reasonably ask: why use Post-Irony to convey a sincere point when one could just convey the sincere point? But the answer in the internet age is fairly obvious: mere sincerity is very often not a viable way of transmitting sincere messages. Indeed, the most likely response of the internet to sincerity is to label it cringe and disregard it.
Post-Irony knows this, and is not afraid of being labeled cringe.
The rise of the term based as an antonym to cringe on the internet is heavily related to Post-Irony. When one says something "based," one is saying something one knows full well will be criticized and deconstructed, and yet says what it sincerely has to say.
Post-Irony, then, is an attempt to convey sincerity in a world that will not accept sincerity on its own terms. Even if one is not particularly worried about being labeled cringe or having one's beliefs deconstructed, it is a simple truth that the internet is highly unlikely to truly engage with a simply sincere message. If one merely says ones sincere beliefs, without any irony in the way one presents one's message, that message is very unlikely to be recieved.
But if one coats one's sincere beliefs in a layer of irony–thereby communicating in the language of the day–then one is far less likely to have one's ideas dismissed out-of-hand as cringe. Then maybe, just maybe, those whose first instinct is to deconstruct using traditional irony will actually be able to hear and engage with the sincere ideas that the Post-Irony is attempting to convey.
Gregory "Jreg" Guevara, B.A. in Post-Truth and PhD in Mental Illness (Not really though)
Post-Irony as Humor
Of course, as with Meta-Irony, one should not over-intellectualize every meme. Very often, the purpose of Post-Irony may simply be to be funny. After all, like Meta-Irony, Post-Irony is a new way to tell jokes in a time when traditionally ironic jokes have grown stale.
However, even when Post-Irony is being used for humor, it still conveys some actual message or point. And indeed, these sincere points can even be rather heartfelt.
There are even cases in which Post-Irony is used to subvert traditional irony in a very literal sense: by actually taking a traditionally ironic meme or image and changing it so that it conveys a new sincere message.
The original, traditionally ironic version of this meme had a sincere message that there is not actually any real difference between "us" and "them." But this subversion of that original meme rejects that message and asserts that, in fact, there is something different between the two sides. "Our" side actually is based, and wholesome, and epic compared to the cringe, and soy, and basic "them."
Whatever one thinks of this message conveyed by this new, Post-Ironic meme, it is sincere, and unlike the traditionally ironic version of the meme that preceeded it, its sincere message is, in fact, precisely the same as the message the meme appears to have–although, by using ironic internet terms like based and cringe and by using comically exaggerated charicatures to prove its point, it coats this sincere message in a layer of irony.
Post-Irony as Deflection
There is a darker side to using Post-Irony in this way, which is that one can use it as a deflection from a genuinely evil argument that one is trying to make.
By coating one's sincere beliefs with a layer of irony, one can convey one's sincere belief in a way that is less likely to trigger a negative, deconstructive response because the Post-Irony gives the sincere belief an appearance of self-deconstruction. But this effect is true even when the sincere point is genuinely abhorrent, and worthy of the deconstructive scrutiny that it would ordinarily recieve.
For example, saying “Hitler was low-key kinda based” is less likely to trigger a negative response than saying “Hitler did nothing wrong,” but the sincere point in either case still an evil one. And Post-Irony is used this way in some social circles, particularly online. In these cases, the Post-Irony serves not only to make the sincere beliefs more palatable, but also to give those employing Post-Irony an out if they ever were held to account for their beliefs. If that were to happen, the person using Post-Irony could simply claim that they had actually been using traditional irony, and that their sincere point was, in fact, the opposite of what it appeared to be.
Post-Irony may also be used in this way–as a deflection from what one really believes, just in case that belief is ever recieved poorly–in cases where one simply lacks confidence in one's own sincere beliefs, even when those beliefs do not include anything so obviously evil as support for Hitler. Because the internet is not only a deconstructive place but also one in which the rules about what is considered acceptable are ever-changing and almost always vague, people may decide to test the waters by using Post-Irony to convey their beliefs, and then to gauge the reaction. If the reaction is negative and critical, the person has the excuse that he was simply being traditionally ironic–indeed, he may even convince himself that this is true.
Post-Irony as Reconstruction
However, Post-Irony can also come from a place of confidence in a belief that is not evil. Philosophically, Post-Irony may also reflect a rejection of Post-Modernism. Some who use Post-Irony do so because they believe that Post-Modern Deconstructionism is a dead end, and they wish to turn back towards sincere belief in something–to try to build, instead of tearing down.
Traditional irony reflected the Post-Modern deconstructive impulse. Meta-Irony took this impulse to its extreme: the deconstruction of deconstruction itself. But Post-Irony rejects both. Post-Irony attempts to reconstruct belief in something sincere. To put it another way: Post-Irony is the return to sincerity through irony.
This does not mean that Post-Irony is unchanged by its journey through irony to return to sincerity. Post-Irony and simple sincerity are different things. But while it is not the same thing as mere sincerity, Post-Irony does posit that there are sincere things worth engaging with, a rejection of the Post-Modern, deconstructive impulse. For this reason, Post-Irony is sometimes seen as associated with the Post-Post-Modernist movement, which rejects Post-Modernism as a dead-end philosophy and seeks to build something new.
I will discuss the Post-Post Modernist movement, and where we may be headed from here, in the conclusion.
Next Chapter: Conclusion
