Wednesday, February 22, 2012
transpondster:

And make no mistake: irony tyrannizes us. The reason why our pervasive cultural irony is at once so powerful and so unsatisfying is that an ironist is impossible to pin down. All U.S. irony is based on an implicit “I don’t really mean what I’m saying.” So what does irony as a cultural norm mean to say? That it’s impossible to mean what you say? That maybe it’s too bad it’s impossible, but wake up and smell the coffee already? Most likely, I think, today’s irony ends up saying: “How totally banal of you to ask what I really mean.” 
David Foster Wallace, (b Feb 21, 1962, d 2008), from “E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction”

transpondster:

And make no mistake: irony tyrannizes us. The reason why our pervasive cultural irony is at once so powerful and so unsatisfying is that an ironist is impossible to pin down. All U.S. irony is based on an implicit “I don’t really mean what I’m saying.” So what does irony as a cultural norm mean to say? That it’s impossible to mean what you say? That maybe it’s too bad it’s impossible, but wake up and smell the coffee already? Most likely, I think, today’s irony ends up saying: “How totally banal of you to ask what I really mean.”

  • David Foster Wallace, (b Feb 21, 1962, d 2008), from “E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction”

Notes

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    Another interesting thought to add to this would be the verbal tick trend of the past, say, 20 years of adding “like” or...
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    I have never read David Foster Wallace, but I think I want to now. I have ended up in depressive fits because of the...
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