“Ironiquotes”
I feel like at this point everyone knows the idea of ‘ironic quotes’. You put something at a little bit of a ‘sideways distance’ to ‘acknowledge the unoriginal sentiment you’re trying to convey’. Sure, it’s a ‘pointless gesture’, but it is somehow ‘still funny’ because you can imagine ‘someone’ just doing ‘air quotes’ around some of the ‘things’ they ‘say’. It ‘admits that you know what you’re saying is a little trite’, or at least that it has ‘been done before.’
Check out this recent post from very funny popular blog ‘the hipster runoffs’ (more on that baffling/wonderful word trend some other time - it’s actually called Hipster Runoff), which loves to do this:
Have yall ever rlly had 2 use the restroom 2 the point that u even used a portapotty? Have yall ever entered in2 a portapotty, but then got confused about ‘how 2 use the restroom’? Just wanted to post this picture because it is ‘tuggable’, ‘dark’, ‘nonsensical’, ‘funny in a meme-ish way’, and kinda like ‘alt porn.’
-from this post
And the people who comment at Carles (Hipster Runoff’s mysterious author) have totally caught on. Carles’ twitter is a masterclass on using “them”.
Funny? Yes. Annoying? Very yes.
I’ve professed previously (in the wake of Obama’s election) my ‘distaste for irony’ in today’s age, even thought it’s practically inescapable. Postmodernism is over, haven’t you heard? I should think that “these ironiquotes” are just as dumb as the “irony mark” - ؟ (which I hate in practice and theory but admire the spirit of).
So why am I such an avid user of these funny but unimportant “inverted commas”?
I’m “reclaiming them” (you know)so they “lose all meaning” and “eventually” “everything” “will” “be” “in” “quotes” “and” “we can stop” “doing this”. Enough sideways glances. But we’ve gotta kill the irony first. Leave it to its bizarro second universe over with Carles and friends (myself included here) and keep it out of real life. We just have to overuse it before it dies.
