a couple of years ago i made a video
talking about what i now call higher
ironies they're kinds of irony that
exist beyond the first and i did a
general analysis of internet culture
young people and how young people have
mutated irony into this abomination two
of these higher ironies were called post
irony and meta irony in that video i
coined the terms post irony and meta
irony as meaning what they mean now the
terms post irony and meta irony
themselves existed before me and i got
those terms from a page called the
philosopher's meme although the
philosopher's meme used them to describe
different in the time since i've made
that video it has had a very large
cultural effect um at least in terms of
the internet people use the term a lot
people write articles about the term
which are basically just rewordings of
my video and it's weird to see these
this this slapdash video that i just
made up one day
slowly mutate and and become codified as
these terms that exist beyond me and the
terms are truly beyond me at this point
meta irony and post irony are their own
beasts there's no connection to the
coiner anymore and that is about as
successful as you can really hope for
any kind of
idea that you try to contribute to the
discourse that people take it from you
use it and then it's a certain point it
no longer becomes yours anyway there's
lots of youtube videos exploring the
topic deeply very good youtube videos um
and then there's idubbbz
who made a video talking about irony and
i want to talk about it i want to talk
about that video because idubbbz is a
big youtuber and i think we're probably
at an inflection point now where terms
like post irony and meta irony are going
to start getting out of this niche
little
i'm interested in internet culture
community and go mainstream and maybe
i'm feeling a little bit of this oh god
my child is going off to school anxiety
and i just sort of wanna i feel like we
should talk about irony before this
happens maybe and i have a lot to say
maybe even too much to say so i think
it's probably best i just show you a
minute and a half of idubbbz explaining
post irony and meta irony on his channel
and i'll just give my reaction as we go
okay before i begin the context is that
um idubbbz is making a documentary about
this guy called sam hyde you probably
know who sam hyde is but if you don't he
was a figure
very popular in 2016
uh who said a lot of ironically
right-wing things ironically racist edgy
jokes this part of the idubbbz
documentary is idubbbz explaining why he
found uh talking to sam hyde and trying
to make a documentary about sam hyde
frustrating and difficult for him hi
before we continue with the documentary
i want to take a few minutes to talk
about irony i wish there was a perfect
way to explain to you guys why talking
to sam hyde is frustrating not only do a
person making a documentary about him
but as a guy who doesn't actually know
sam on a personal level so here he's
hinting this is so interesting and i
really don't even know where to begin
here he's hinting at the core problem as
to why he was so turned off by the way
that sam hyde uses irony
irony is a code
it's it's a code that sometimes everyone
can understand and it's a code that
sometimes very select few people can
understand and it's why if you are a
political extremist using ironic
language can communicate to the
political extremists things that uh
would go right over a normal person's
head
and so you can kind of communicate two
messages at once one the message that
most people are going to receive and two
the message of your intended art
audience
idubbbz
was not in on the joke lacking a cue
like context or tone of voice or
something you know ahead of time about
the character delivering the line um
means that you are
not capable of figuring out what the
sincere message of the joke is or if
there isn't even a sincere message in
the joke but um i understand i'm
probably getting ahead of myself here so
let's keep going a lot of people
probably refer to irony as having
metaphorical layers but irony exists in
a circle um so he's introducing his
model of of meta irony and post irony
here and he's deviating from the form
he's come up with his own model and
that's super cool idubbbz i am so
uh happy that you are interacting with
the irony model and
keep it up buddy um but i think one
thing to keep in mind while you're
talking about irony is to try to keep
yourself humble explain
where you have maybe are making like a
leap of judgement maybe you're using an
axiom that you you know you don't like
the layer concept sure that's fine and
you prefer to put it in a circle sure
that's cool um but to say irony is in a
circle and this is how it is it's a
little
i think it's i think i think if you are
serious if you are serious about
contributing to the irony discourse the
best way to do it is to be humble and
open because we don't we don't different
structures of irony describe different
parts of irony in different ways and so
for what you're describing now i think
the circle is a very good analysis and i
actually really like what you did with
the circle
this is the circle of irony at the top
of the circle of irony you have
sincerity
you can't have any amount of irony
without some sincerity behind it here's
an example of a sincere thought
i don't like eating [ __ ]
people who are not being ironic say
sincere things like that all the time
you might say that it's the default way
to say things the next rung on the
circle of irony yeah so i like his uh
definition of sincerity we all know what
sincerity is um
and so he's going for like a wrong thing
you know my model i call sincerity layer
zero or whatever that's the truth of the
message uh i think i think the way he
described sincerity was good it's just
called irony you might be familiar with
this from english class ask why didn't
my english teacher tell me this the
answer is because your english teacher
is a normie and it basically means that
you kind of feel the opposite
of what is being expressed
uh and it's basically just sarcasm so
i uh use sarcasm that's my primary the
primary thing i used to describe um
verbal like uh
irony i use verbal irony because we're
all familiar with verbal irony and we're
all familiar with sarcasm
but to say it's basically just sarcasm
uh does cut out a lot of the very
interesting parts about irony for
example situational irony is not sarcasm
when you um
when you expect one thing and you get
the complete opposite that's something
that you might observe in your
day-to-day life it's not a form of
verbal irony uh
small little critique but i am i'm just
nitpicking here um overall yeah pretty
good explanation oh yeah i love eating
[ __ ] great people think i love eating
[ __ ] now isn't that just perfect idubbbz
is uh uh examples during this whole part
is really good like really good and i i
really like the uh the way that he
delivers the the examples and i it shows
that he has a strong concept of of what
each of the different rungs mean and
it's a complicated you know thing to
wrap your head around so i think he did
do it justice and i i think his examples
are like very funny and engaging and and
um they're well they're well done this
is the go-to boomer humor that old
people thrive off of one layer of irony
is very boomer it's very
um
it's it's very not of our generation
they love sarcasm it is a basic level of
irony to the point where it's almost
irrelevant to millennials and zoomers
and not only are they a normie but
they're also completely disconnected
from your generation's culture and will
never understand it so you should give
up on trying it's weird to see um
okay
i'm just gonna say the quiet part out
loud here
a lot of what i did
playing the base work for irony is i in
infused it with ageism and i don't
regret that um
but i think we should probably be aware
that
you know we're not the
only people to ever use irony or cope
with absurdism or nihilism i mean andy
kaufman was a boomer so
um
[Music]
the other thing though here is in
talking about irony in this way and in
like creating a mythos of what the gen z
subculture is we're essentially positing
a meta-narrative which i think we need
like i'm i'm pro-meta-narrative uh for
the generation so
um
[Music]
yeah i i just think you know
maybe like
i don't even know if we should be aware
of that maybe i'll cut this out who
knows after irony we have post irony
this is where you say something in a way
that makes it sound like you don't mean
it when you actually do mean it in other
words you're using irony to make a joke
about how you're joking in other words
you're using irony to make a joke about
how you're joking yeah i'd say that's
that's a pretty good way of explaining
post irony i would also look at it as
maybe like a subversion of a subversion
irony you flip from what you're saying
to the opposite of what you're saying
post irony you do it twice like you flip
from what you're saying to the opposite
of what you're saying and then you flip
again back to what you're saying oh i
don't like eating [ __ ] oh me oh no i
don't like eating [ __ ]
i hate that i don't like eating [ __ ] i
don't like eating delicious creamy [ __ ]
stop saying that about me if you put a
pile of [ __ ] in front of me i wouldn't
devour it like an animal instantly i
wouldn't be doing that again
his examples are very good i think
that's i think that's
a compelling way of uh of of of
describing verbal irony verbal post
irony probably the most popular form of
irony in the modern generation
they're basically parodies of memes so
when he says post irony is basically
parodies of memes he's sort of i guess
punching outside of the zone the area
that he's describing right now he's
describing um
like i guess verbal
and literary uh kinds of ironies and
it's not necessarily like a clean line
from verbal ironies to meme like meme
culture and meme ironies the
philosophers meme
that's all of their work about irony
it's just like relating it to memes so
some of the examples he uses here are
good examples of post-ironic memes so
giraffe crane bottom text okay it's it's
a giraffe crane it's just a picture of a
giraffe crane
it is post ironic because it's showing
you an image and it's just genuinely
like it's a funny image and you're
supposed to laugh and that's that's all
there is or um like this image and you
will literally consume air like that's
that's funny because you i mean you like
the image you will breathe it's it's
kind of just just you know it's uh
it it is it is essentially a sincere
meme it's kind of weird that it's being
sincere about that but it's it's funny
it's a subversion of what might just
have been a joke like a regular joke but
then you notice on the top right there's
like this weird pixelated
markiplier plus lord farquaad and this
that's the b meme that's the absurdist b
meme and i don't think this is a good
example of post irony um
yeah i i think it's hard to call that
post irony because it's just like an
absurd
meaningless mashup of of things that are
like vaguely familiar and something's
going on there and i'm not 100 sure what
maybe but maybe it's more of a
meta-ironic meme i'm not sure um really
um
i think it's probably more meta-ironic
just because it has no
nothing you can glean from it there's no
message there i have to already know
what irony is to appreciate or begin to
appreciate post-ironic humor and look
there's no more room on the circle so we
must be done
what the [ __ ] is that um so here
basically during the the i guess the the
point of his circle model is that meta
irony wraps back around and slams into
sincerity um
[Music]
i think he maybe made this model because
he can't conceive of like
uh layers beyond layer two
poor little idubbbz doesn't know about
metapost irony or hyper meta post post
irony that being said i do think that
this circle model is very interesting
and um like to have meta irony be
something that sort of returns the
sincerity but like warps through some
kind of dimension i find that very
interesting as well [ __ ] is that meta
irony is where this gets [ __ ]
irony is all [ __ ] now this is where
you're saying something sincere but the
context could imply that you're saying
it ironically
yet the thing that you're saying is
actually a sincere thought if this
doesn't make sense that's because it
doesn't make any sense it's meant to
confuse you i think uh he maybe doesn't
understand meta irony and so he's like i
don't even understand meta irony uh
that's so
that's so meta-ironic because i'm trying
to describe meta irony but i don't
understand it must be because the very
term is meant to confuse me i mean maybe
i like that because it adds a little bit
of mysticism to the chart and i think i
think i enjoy having mysticism in the in
my in the chart so i'll just say yes
that's why med irony is so confusing
it's because it's to confuse you even
more and not because i wasn't very good
at explaining it the first time meta
irony is placed intentionally in this
circle in a way that doesn't make any
sense because it is intertwined with
sincerity no i don't like eating [ __ ] no
i don't like eating [ __ ]
unless
but do i like eating [ __ ]
you don't know do you
the fact that i brought it up in the
first place is a little bit suspicious
but the concept of eating [ __ ] is so
ridiculous that i have to be serious
when i say i don't want to
right meta irony is used effectively by
people whose intention is to blur the
line between sincerity and jokes it
creates a situation where in order for
there to be a prerequisite of sincerity
i have to obtain the knowledge outside
of the joke you're basically just saying
the consumption of [ __ ] is something
that is physically possible isn't that
interesting by employing meta irony
you're basically
saying look at this thing it exists
that but that's really all you're saying
if you're meta ironic about something
you're not saying anything about that
thing other than it is something that
you can point to yeah so this is a point
that i made uh in my in my video i
basically said meta irony points to
something says hey this exists that's
interesting isn't it and that's
basically all it does it it
it can it can mean things but it it can
only mean things on a meta level that's
why it's called net ironing
well that's
that's not really
i'm gonna explain this after i'm done
with the video but if you're not saying
anything about something when you say it
why do you even say it people don't tend
to do things for no reason there has to
be an answer here and there are two
answers
either you're just bad at irony
or
you're just being sincere i do okay this
is why i wanted to make the video he
comes to the conclusion that if you're
using meta irony there's one of two
options you're batted irony which is
failed irony that's a completely
different
axis of analysis when we're talking
about irony or you're just being sincere
well
no
right that was your definition of post
irony right if you're just being sincere
you're being post-ironic okay i really
want to talk about meta irony because
it's very tempting for us to place our
judgments upon
these higher forms of irony as
um good or bad right we we've discovered
like a new literary device and we're
like oh this is
bad because it separates you from
yourself or this is good because it
builds the new meta-narrative and that's
so post-post-modern yeah it's like
it's like post-irony like the good guy
building up the the new world and meta
irony is the evil guy lurking in the
shadows i need a duality meta irony and
post irony they're just
literary devices meta irony is a
literary device that's it you can use
literary devices in all sorts of
different ways that's not to dismiss the
fact that meta irony yes of course is
definitely definitely
used to deflect criticism and to shroud
yourself in mystery and all that stuff
that human beings tend to not like but
meta irony can also be used to craft
abstract art that different people see
different things in and i think that's
valuable meta irony can be used by young
people to feel out ideas and and try to
understand them by inhabiting them and
maybe if you're afraid of inhabiting an
idea truly you can step into an idea
frame and feel it out and try it out and
maybe if you like it you can adopt it
and really truly engage with it and yeah
meta irony can be used to deceive but
who are you deceiving right if you're
deceiving somebody who you don't like
and you know you don't want to
understand what you're trying to say if
you're trying to create a coded message
between you and the trusted few people
who are in your in-group which idubbbz
was not in the in group in this in this
video which is why he was frustrated
then
you know meta irony can be a
constructive generative positive force
for humans and humanity
it can also just be a fun
toy to play with and uh i think what's
happened here is we know we've
discovered a new wrench
and it's called meta irony and like it's
fun and we're playing around with it and
idubbbz got bunked with a wrench and
he's like oh the wrench is bad that's
what it feels like just based off of me
watching this and idubbbz is well he's
not a zoomer i know i'm gonna do some
more of this uh this gen z myth building
here but bear with me this is why it's
so difficult to be around sam try to
understand him and ultimately make a
documentary about him he lives here sam
is drenched in meta irony
drenched in meta irony i love that
visual he intentionally doesn't make it
obvious when he is or isn't joking about
something so um another thing uh idubbbz
is assuming here is that sam is either
in a state of i am definitely joking
about this or i am definitely telling
the truth about this and um there's
actually some more ambiguity to that i
mean sometimes he might not know what he
means when he says the thing and
sometimes he might be kind of joking or
kind of telling the truth or
yeah sometimes he might just not know
why he does this is up for
interpretation i guess but after seeing
how much he appears to involve himself
in political ideologies it seems he
prefers to use meta irony as a shield
and credit to idubbbz here i mean
he says
sam hyde uses meta irony as a shield
which implies that that irony has lots
of uses one of which is a shield and
that is completely accurate
to say
i was just joking is a legitimate way to
exonerate yourself in moments of actual
miscommunication but it's also a perfect
fallback option for when you receive
criticism for a point that you are
genuinely trying to make i think eating
[ __ ] is awesome what the [ __ ] you like
eating [ __ ] i was just kidding are you
stupid or something well now i feel bad
for being unaware of any irony going on
so in the future i will not criticize
you for anything you say i am now
invulnerable to criticism so he hits the
nail on the head there with the
conclusion and that is um i mean i'm
sure you could
point up some figures and definitely say
you're using this tool deceptively in
order to avoid social responsibility
okay i think i've said most of what i
want to say about
idubbbz and sam hyde oh no actually i
want to say one more thing i am assuming
that you understood post-irony and
meta-irony based off of idubbbz's
explanation of both of them so i'm not
going to re-explain them
let's do a quick exercise just for fun
it's hard to write off any of the ironic
stuff is just ironic
peace
because hate is wack dude
my race is done you're inheriting the
earth along with some other undesirables
that's an interesting case study you
know my race is done you guys are
inheriting the earth kind of seems like
an absurd thing to say feels ironic um
but with the context that we know that
sam hyde is affiliated with the
alt-right we can say it's post-ironic
and it actually is post-ironic like he
means what he's saying about my race is
done the white race is finished you guys
are inheriting the earth he is mostly
sincere about that probably like 80
sincere about that and we can look at
this now and we can say without a shadow
of a doubt yes
this was
ironic most people will it will observe
this now as being as him saying this
post ironically but at the time without
the context clue that he was actually
affiliated with the alt-right and we
knew this for certain because he had a
twitter and no one should have a twitter
however at the time if if we when we
didn't have that context clue when it
was unclear what what his true beliefs
were it was more meta-ironic because
meta irony is often denoted by a lack of
context clue it is something that
extremists use to disguise their speech
and i think that's very bad because i'm
a social democrat so it was meta-ironic
at the time but looking back on it it
was post-ironic maybe you could call
that post-meta-ironic maybe that's a
layer 3 form of irony maybe post-meta
irony is when you collapse the waveform
of meta-irony into one of two possible
positions
okay so just to recap um
i think we're at an inflection point
with people talking about higher forms
of irony and really digging into you
know what irony means i'm gonna try to
be more humble when i um propose things
and
i think going forward we should just all
cite our sources and and try to explain
where our ideas are coming from instead
of passing them off as absolute truth uh
i
walked in the footsteps of the
philosophers meme who i'm sure you know
they walked in the footsteps of other
people as well and so i think you should
probably like know everything about how
i made that video and what kind of
biases went to that video and such first
of all i'm an orator so
most of my examples were
structured around verbal irony but you
can approach you can apply these kinds
of irony to basically any form of medium
wherever there is a message there can be
irony to subvert it and this message can
take the form of several different
medias that's why we have dramatic irony
and situational irony and verbal irony
and visual irony that's a fun one and
then there are some people who took
the framework that i used for irony and
they built off of it in a very
constructive
and helpful way and in ways that i find
very interesting and you should check
them out all the sun via made i think
the most popular um video which was
building off of the ideas that i put
forth in that video and
um
then there's another person called timmy
who made a video called aesop didn't
understand meta irony and it's a very
interesting unpacking of some of the
consequences of meta irony and what that
might look like check them out they're
very good and um i mean these people
like you know they cited their sources i
don't think it's a coincidence that the
people with the best grasp of the
subjects are zoomers i encourage you to
think about irony and
to analyze things as you know ironic or
post-ironic or whatever make up your own
terms i also want to tell you about how
i came up with the terms post-ironic and
meta-ironic um those didn't come from
anywhere that those were just i liked
the term post-ironic and i liked the
term meta-ironic i associate uh irony
with a post-modernist movement it's not
it's not a one-to-one or anything but
i associate irony with as a tool that
you used to deconstruct kind of like a
scalpel you can pick apart a framework
with it is very good for satire for
example you expose the contradictions
within something um
but you okay so say you use that irony
and you you pick apart a framework okay
but what if we live in a postmodern time
where deconstruction is the norm and
everything that can exist just gets
immediately picked apart how do you how
do you break through that and this is
partially the reason why i feel the need
to defend higher forms of irony
post irony
is the perfect way of breaking through
a very cynical hard ironic shell with a
sniper with a armor piercing round bang
feel [ __ ] feel because what
makes post irony different from just
regular sincerity is you're saying
something sincere but you're using
the coded language to show that you are
in the in group you are suffering with
the person and you have found a way out
and that's
that's a really
beautiful thought
okay
i got off track there i i got a little
off track there
so um postpo so so again full disclosure
i looked up post post modernism and i
felt that was like but i think the
wikipedia article said this is a return
to sincerity from irony and so i was
like okay but that's clearly post irony
uh and then
i made up meta irony by looking at
metamodernism and metamodernism seemed
to confuse or muddle sincerity and irony
and i was like okay this is a perfect
word for something i've observed online
which is when irony and sincerity is
muddled together and the the the signal
just becomes kind of noise now this was
two and a half years ago i was thinking
about irony a lot before that video but
you know ultimately i just it was just
kind of yeah i made it um looking back i
don't know if post irony and media are
near the best terms and
i i i think i'm gonna still use them
just because everybody else is using
them now but i i just wanna you know
full disclosure here
um meta irony
is probably better described as just
ambiguous irony or like maybe
schrodinger's irony something along
those lines
um
and maybe like everything after irony
instead of calling it a higher irony
would be better off calling it just all
post irony like it's all some form of
beyond irony um
and maybe like we could refer to what we
call post irony now as trans irony
because that
fits better with uh this russian novel
i could write like five books i could i
could write five books also
post post modernism and metamodernism
are just used interchangeably there's no
academic consensus on what those two
mean i don't even care about academic
consensus but there's also no like
cultural consensus either nobody nobody
knows what these things mean and when we
talk about them we create them and that
is how significant
talking about this stuff is and it's
very interesting and i don't know where
it's going to go
i don't know how it's going to advance
and i will talk more about irony oh
there's so many different kinds of irony
folks there's there's hyper irony and
there's a weak irony that's like layer
0.5 and there's layer 1.5 and there's
the direction of irony and there's the
way that irony goes from sincerity to
irony to post irony and then it moves
into hyperbole and that's layer three
and then it goes back to post-post irony
and folks
folks
folks maybe i won't talk but talk about
any of that maybe
maybe i'll just let my my kid go to go
to school
you