The significant cultural movement called Irony died quietly in its sleep last week, passing away at the respectable age of 2,438.
Officially born in 429 during the stage debut of Oedipus Rex, irony’s childhood years were spent shocking audiences with cries like “No, he’s your son! Don’t sleep with him!” and “But Juliet’s not really dead, dumb ass! Put the poison down!” These adolescent episodes were later dubbed “dramatic irony” by scholars, and “being a teenager” by family members.
Later in life, irony continued to pervade pop culture, this time by seizing Generation X. Its defining moment (literally) came in the 1994 film Reality Bites, when a scruffed Ethan Hawke tells Winona Ryder, “Irony is when the actual meaning differs from the literal meaning.” The same year, Alanis Morisette insisted instead that irony is “like rain on your wedding day,” infuriating English teachers everywhere.
Irony continued its smirked streak in full force until 2008, when Dan Humphrey of Gossip Girl managed to capture the throne of American Teen Outsider without once making use of it. Irony’s friends acknowledge that indeed, it knew its days were numbered.
Irony died on January 31, 2009, when the singer Lisa Loeb - whose angsty hit, Stay was the Reality Bites theme song - advertised her recent wedding to music producer Roey Hershkovitz, in the Vows section of The New York Times.
Acknowledging it could no longer exist in a world where once-scrappy singers earnestly declared their love in a section synonymous with “Tiffany registry” and “fertility treatment,” irony passed quietly at home.
It is buried in the Webster’s dictionary, and survived by a niece, Snark, who might carry on its legacy, if bloggers get any better at actually writing things.
[MARGALIT FOX - AM I THE IMAGINARY SOCIALITE?]
You, you little darling, are perfection. Absolutely love this little obit.