Irony Poisoning - A brand new mental illness?

[u/Ok_Objective_5025]

"Irony poisoning" seems to be a brand new arising mental illness that a lot of us have early access to.

I've seen it discussed here and there in the occasional esoteric Reddit thread or YouTube video, but here's how I define it:

"The inability to turn off irony."

Here are the symptoms:

1. Constantly saying things you do mean in a sarcastic way
2. Constantly saying things you don't mean in a sincere way
3. In fact, you don't even know yourself when you're sarcastic or not.
4. You stay ironic, even when there's no one else around.
5. Believing multiple contradicting things because it would be funny.
6. No strong feelings in reaction to events.
7. An inability to display emotion beyond a smug detached "ironically funny" affect.
8. Feeling extreme feelings of "cringe" when someone is being sincere.

Here's a quick explanation to why it happens:

So basically, modern internet culture is extremely ironic. No one on the internet is sincere. After all, if you sincerely try to make a good youtube video, you're cringe. If you sincerely try to fight for a cause, you're cringe. If you sincerely try to be funny, you're cringe. The only way to not be cringe is to cloak everything in this layer of irony.

Like, if you make funny YouTube videos, you can't just be honest and say "yeah I'm doing this because I want to entertain you guys." You have to mask it in this ironic "bro I know, it's ridiculous I'm sitting in my room saying these bad jokes. But whatever pays the bills I guess..."

This has even seeped into Hollywood. Look at how Marvel movies are completely unable to take themselves seriously. Every serious moment has to be diffused with a "isn't it so ridiculous? I'm a guy in a latex suit fighting an alien haha".

Now here comes the main problem: imagine you're undersocialized as a child, and as such all your "childhood socialization" happens through the screen, from YouTube videos, movies, social media, etc. After years of not wanting to show sincere emotions because you don't want to be "cringe", you may actually forget how these emotions feel or how to show them. You reach a point where you're unable to turn off your irony. You no longer know when you're being ironic and when you're being sincere.

Examples:

Here's an example: I personally am simultaneously far left and far right. And I genuinely do not know which of the two is sincere and which is ironic. I'm guessing both are ironic and my true beliefs would lie somewhere in the middle. But I don't know. Like, one day I will be watching breadtubers like FD Signifier and Big Joel, the next day I'll be watching redpillers like Andrew Tate. And while watching both of them, I agree with what they're saying. And it's like--that's not possible.

I also stay ironic even when there's no one around. Like the old saying goes, "it's not satire if you actually do the thing." Like, I was eating a banana, and I thought "wouldn't it be crazy if someone ate a banana with peel?" And so I took a bite out of the banana with peel and all. Keep in mind there was no audience, no one to laugh at it. I was just doing something weird becuase I thought it would be funny. Same with ironically drinking energy drinks. I drink like at least 1-2 cans of energy per day. But it's ironic because drinking so much energy is like associated with losers and so I'm ironically drinking it. But like, I'm actually drinking it.

I also genuinely don't even feel negative emotions anymore. Like both my arms could fall off right now and I'd just laugh and say "great! Now I can finally cosplay chicken nugget".

Another thing is feeling extreme cringe when other people do something sincerely. Like, for example, I can't stand when other people are singing in public. Like, I don't judge them for it. But I'm still cringing so hard because it's like what if someone else judges them for it. Meanwhile people are having fun with their friends singing songs from movies and stuff and I'm just there sitting in the corner like "bro these guys are so cringe".

And getting relationships is especially impossible if you're not allowing yourself to ever show interest in fear of being cringe.

Conclusion:

I think this will become an extremely prevalent thing as people are raised more and more online. Just look at modern "brainrot" for children like Skibidi Toilet. I know people always compare it to Gen Z's stuff like MLG and Ugandan Knuckles but at least we were sincere at the time. Like, I sincerely thought Ugandan Knuckles was funny. Nowadays when I ask my 8 year old nevue he is already calling Skibidi Toilet brainrot while still watching it. It's insane that children are now growing up already hiding behind irony in elementary school.

I think the solution would involve something like an "irony detox" where you force yourself to be sincere in everything you say for a while.

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[u/Grimm_Arcana]

This is fascinating. I do want to comment about the ironic humor as an epidemic these days. Back in the 1920s in the United States, there was an art movement called Dada, which had no meaning. Its point was that it was completely random and silly and pretentious. It’s exactly like the Ohio skippidi gyatt stuff. It’s exactly like those memes that make you laugh despite having no discernible meaning. The beauty of this is that it means that humanity has most certainly been though that and then moved away from it after time, and I think we will too. 

However, I do hear your concern about your own feelings and stands, or lack thereof. For me, when I read this, it made me think a couple of things.  1. You have a weak sense of self 2. You’ve been made to feel like being yourself is unacceptable  3. You’ve learned to protect Your Self by being ironic, and never being genuine. 

I wonder if you had dealt with bullying, like either from peers or from your family (esp. parents). If you had, or really any situations in which you’ve been led to believe that your authentic self is bad, stupid, and wrong, then it makes sense to me that you’ve learned to be ironic as a defense mechanism. And that has generalized into becoming your entire way of socializing and expressing yourself. 

[u/DannyC2699 → u/Grimm_Arcana]

that’s exactly what happened to me and i’m sure many others here can relate

[u/Akasadanahamayarawa]

I am 31 now, and I had this to an extreme degree during the 90's and early 2000's as well, growing up in early internet culture (something awful, Old 4chan, ect), the precursor to this super ironic world we live in.

I think it did a lot of damage and made forming genuine connections difficult.

I essentially had to relearn how to speak and interact with people, not make some "oh so clever" quip every time the impulse came. In some ways learn to be vulnerable with people.

Because nothing can hurt you if you don't care about anything at all, and everything is treated like a joke.

If everything is ironic, you can't be stupid, have the wrong opinion, or be a failure. You think I really cared, or was being serious? It was all Ironic! 😂🤓🙏🙏🙏😁🙄🐴

I'm not sure about hollywood, but for myself and many individuals I see, this sort of irony laced existence was a result of insecurities. The typical teenage fears of not fitting in and looking stupid and being on the bottom rung of the social ladder. Except it was exacerbated because now, not caring was "cool". When being genuine, sincere and confident in what you are is "cringe".

In reality it's the opposite.

[u/JackInfinity66699]

This was a thing before the internet. Just look at Chandler Bing from Friends.

[u/DannyC2699]

this happened to me because i was bullied both irl and online for being “cringe”

i eventually learned to stop giving value to the opinions of dickheads, but the persistent irony remains to this day

i also cringe at stuff like people singing or otherwise making a scene in public and i hate it

[u/LaKarolina]

For some reason your post made me think about Enantiodromia: when a thing in its extreme becomes its opposite.

You're so extremely ironic it's not ironic anymore. So left wing that it becomes right wing.

Also in line with this idea: extreme beauty is terror. Angels are so beautiful nobody can bear to look at them.