What the FUCK is irony. I've been struggling to understand this for years now.
Dramatic irony is about the only definition of irony I understand. What I really want to put a definition to is the irony that DFW talks about. Take a sitcom, like Friends. Are the majority of the punchlines ironic? If I'm being the opposite of sincere, am I ironic? If I say "Get-r-done," in front of friends from the city, is it ironic?
Pic unrelated, I think.
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There are different kinds and it can be broad and confusing
I usually think of it as being something contrary to what is expected
>X does Y expecting result Z
>however the act of doing Y in itself brought about the result (-Z)
>X is an object of irony
postmodernism had the sort of cynical, ironic flare that DFW was trashing on. you can view modernism as a sort of sincere effort at finding truths and what DFW was sort of pushing for was a return to sincerity that i don't think is necessarily the same as what you'd find in woolf's writing but has a certain vulnerability
Well you see it's like rain on your wedding day.
Irony mostly means saying one thing but meaning another. It's a literary device that's been used for ages now. Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken is an ironic poem because the speaker says he took the road less traveled by when we already know they looked the same.
It's not at odds with sincerety at all, except when you're talking about the sort of irony drenched in 20th century cynicism, which is what DFW talks about I think. Those terrible "lol I have depression" memes you see around here are a good example of that. The irony is obvious and is only used to distance oneself from one's personal problems in an effort to be cool. Avoiding introspection through distractions is a motif in Infinite Jest.
Irony is saying "I have crippling depression".
Advanced sarcasm, the kind the world can use.
Irony is not a superior form of sarcasm, nor is it the description of things that are merely particularly unfortunate (as per Alanis). You could say its saying one thing and meaning another but I don't really buy that alone, lots of rhetorical techniques that aren't irony use that.
Irony is about incongruity between cause and desired effect.
Truly patrician champagne irony occurs when the cause actively defeats the desired effect.
Many cultures find irony both hilariously funny and soul-chillingly thought provoking. Our lovably earnest North American cousins don't seem to have the gene for it though. They are either earnest and direct or directly nihilistic.
Irony in post-modernism should be quite an exciting idea given its creating incongruities in a situation where meaning is itself fluid but, alas, it did just turn into people saying one thing and expecting you to mean another which brings it from the patrician heights of rhetoric to the depths of euphemistic mediocrity.
Used appropriately there is nothing more sincere than irony probably, its a mistake to think either irony or post-modernism are necessary and sufficient conditions for the other.
The Greeks were masters of ironic banter after all.
Think something like Deadpool. The entire thing is soulless, unoriginal, corporate garbage. Yet it believes in being self referential, in being "ironic" of how cliche and unoriginal it is, it replaces the need for genuine originality, or, you know, just any shred or ounce of creativity.
And this kind of "irony" and "meta" humor is just about everywhere now. In fucking everything. From shit your average teenager says and watches (filthy frank, KYS, rick and morty, hehe I have crippling depression) to just how people communicate in things. Now that I've pointed this out I'm sure you will notice it fucking everywhere and it will be exhausting. And it's terrible for "art" too, because you can't criticize ironic shit. Like, "this is fucking horrible" --- > "hehe, its supposed to be. its ironic. bet you feel dumb now huh?"
>Take a sitcom, like Friends. Are the majority of the punchlines ironic?
Yes, like seinfeld. It has great cynicism in how unoriginal and ungenuine it all is, yet it believes just being meta about it is creative enough to warrant not actually changing said unoriginal lack of genuine-ness, if that makes sense? bad at explaining.
Thanks everyone so far for the input. You've all helped.
Deadpool is in the ironic mode but you're missing why.
The irony it is interested in is what the point is of a superhero film where the audience already knows the protagonist can't be harmed or killed. While this is true of all superhero films implicitly, in Deadpool its an explicit fact.
So there probably isn't a point to it and its just supposed to be fun, which is what the film tells you.
And actually, it is quite good fun.
You can try to be original or creative with that premise but the film you keep making will be called Superman and they are notably lacking in anything approaching fun.
Everything is irony
>it believes in being self referential, in being "ironic" of how cliche and unoriginal it is
>defining irony ironically to someone who doesn't know what irony is
That's ironic
I wouldn't say sitcoms are ironic situationally or verbally. They're fucking sitcoms. To be ironic, something has to occur that is the opposite of what one expects, but because they're sitcoms, they're fucking predictable. I will agree that they may attempt to be ironic, but fail due to the predictability of the skits.
>is it ironic to be unironic in attempt at being ironic
i can hear it in my head
>I usually think of it as being something contrary to what is expected
Ironically,it can also be something that is expected
ex: My mother calls me every Sunday at about 5:00 pm. At 4:58 one Sunday, a friend is visiting, whom I begin to tell my mother is about to call and the phone rings before I can even finish the sentence. This would be an example of situational irony (as would be an example of what you said).
>Irony mostly means saying one thing but meaning another
Irony doesn't "mostly" mean this. It's just another type of irony, namely verbal irony.
Hyperbole and understatement are also forms of irony. So, in total, there are five kinds of irony: dramatic, situational, verbal, hyperbole, and understatement. Hyperbole and understatement can be understood as subsets of verbal irony, though.
There's also when things are like things made out of iron.
I fucking hate it when some film student's short film becomes viral and its about film students strugglin to come up with a good idea for their short film. Like they think its so fucking clever.
I also think young people these days use self-awareness as an excuse to not improve their flaws. For example when you critice them theyll point out to you that theyre already aware of whatever the flaw is and maybe joke about it to. However I feel they often do it to soften the blow of criticism. While this might make them feel better about themselves, it doesnt allow for proper honesty to affect them, which in turn hinders their chance of improvement of their life for the better. I personally do this so this is my interpretation of it
This is more of a self-awareness rant than one about irony but its not like theyre unrelated
>its a postmodernism post
>Pic unrelated, I think.
lol
Great question.
The recent election was ironic in that sjws tried their hardest to get Hillary elected, but because of their methods the support of Trump grew stronger.
Trump probably wouldn't have been elected if it weren't for the extreme Hillary supporters.
Read Schlegel you plebs
i think if you are aware of your flaws and you see it like flaws, it´s in your hand to change it.
i think is a self-defense thing more than irony or false self-awareness.
I still dont know how to define irony. I know it when I see it but I can't explain why something is ironic if someone were to ask me.
Think of it like those 'ironic meme's - which are deliberately crude and stupid stock photos with captions added to them. Most are doen as a satire of overused a popular memes you see on social media. They look stupid, but a lot of the time are actually hilarious.
The irony DFW was talking about was self referential, sarcastic, self-detached and cynical.
He was critical of it because it has no redeeming qualities. It can point out social problems but shows no solution. It is almost impossible to criticize because it takes nothing seriously.
Take for instance show like Seinfeld, it's always sunny and south park. These shows are cynical and self referential with irredeemable characters. They encounter real problems but dismiss them with detached irony. They see the problems but pass them off with a shrug and a "joke". They even make fun of themselves for doing this, but since it's acknowledged it can't be criticized.
Now if you contrast these shows with shows like the office, community and parka and recreations you can see a shift to more sincere shows. These shows still have irony, but it is used in a way that real relationships are created. For example Jim and Pam are ironically detached from the rest of the office, but this irony brings them together in their own relationship. You can also see tha the people genuinely care for each other and put themselves in vulnerable positions.
>ex: My mother calls me every Sunday at about 5:00 pm. At 4:58 one Sunday, a friend is visiting, whom I begin to tell my mother is about to call and the phone rings before I can even finish the sentence. This would be an example of situational irony (as would be an example of what you said).
That doesn't seem very ironic to me
>The irony it is interested in is what the point is of a superhero film where the audience already knows the protagonist can't be harmed or killed
>So there probably isn't a point to it and its just supposed to be fun, which is what the film tells you
This is what I was talking about. It is as unoriginal and boring as any other superhero /comic movie of the past theee years, yet it believes it magically becomes more "fun" in how totally self aware of this it is. Besides, its insulting to a degree the movie thinks I cant like something genuinely without it having to be meta about its flaws or something. Deadpool is the worst of both worlds. Everything I despise in modern pop culture, which is being tainted by meta bullshit.
kek
Irony is making things shitty on purpose but claiming it isn't shit because you're aware it's shit. If you get to a high enough level, you can shittily make shitty things and claim you have two layers of irony.
> laugh track plays as you gaze into the camera for a beat
Whenever the literal meaning of something is subverted by the meaning derived from its context.
That is it.
Things can be intentionally ironic.
Things can be expressed literally by the speaker but understood by the audience in an ironic manner [dramatic irony.]
Things can be both expressed and understood literally but become ironic over time when they are understood by new audiences.