Day in the life
College is a beautiful thing, and I think you learn a lot from being in college. Fashion, cigarettes, cool music, blunts, bongs, bowls, burritos, breakfast, breakfast burritos, coffee, Monster, Red Bull, sushi, student discounts–it almost feels like a video game because the campus is a large map separated into biomes, and we are all little characters with inventories and mobs to fight and factions and achievements and skill trees. I don’t have a job right now because I’m mainly focusing on schooling, I guess. Are you cooked, or are you cooking? I’m clearly burnt to a crisp; I need to lock in! Fashion, big boots, small boots, boots with fur, boots with buckles, purposefully (or accidentally, depending on your whole angle) ripped shirts, ripped jeans, baggy jeans, skinny jeans, bell bottoms, studded belts, Kandi bracelets, raccoon tails, wolf cuts, pixie cuts, and studs. What did you get pierced? Where did you get it done? Do you have a light? What are you doing tonight? The Pubes are playing at The Diaper tonight at eight, and my friend knows the drummer because they used to bunk together (nondescript exercises of homoeroticism) at summer camp. I’m actually working on a short film with him for my You’re Doing Great Everybody Loves Everything You Do class. Picture this: it opens on my friend smoking a cigarette. Let’s go get some cold brew; I’m exhausted. I must’ve gotten no more than thirty minutes of real, proper sleep last night! Why aren’t you skipping Enlightenment and Social Reform class? I had that one last semester, but I spent most of that time high on refrigerator freon to do any of the coursework. Back to that bunking, we’re all pretty much just looking for our way around in this world, pure libertine spirits beaming through the universe like the Hale-Bopp. That is to say, we’re all pretty much willing to kiss a dude at a party if it means we can stack snizz later on in the night. I might’ve caught something from that girl in my Lying Down on a Yoga Mat and Breathing In and Out class. Don’t call it snizz, you fucking pig.
What experts have to say
From extremism to cat memes, expansive digital global networks have reshaped the world by redefining how people gather and communicate within their communities. One concept to emerge from perpetually online spaces is “irony poisoning,” a term that describes the process by which individuals become entangled in layers of irony and the distinction between offensive (and often hateful) humor and sincere belief becomes blurred or non-existent altogether.
— The Canadian Anti-Hate Network
Shame! Shame! The well has been tainted. Honey, you’ve barely touched your Geek Bar. Don’t worry, all will come into the picture. We must first attempt a deeper understanding of what we are working with. Work before play; I’m trying too hard.
What the quote’s source fails to realize is that the end result of this hypnotic dance with irony is not a militant fascist sympathizer but an adolescent without a cause. Whether or not this aimlessness manifests into anything in particular is irrelevant to what is really of importance: the absence. This cavernous sensation with its isolating and suffocating presence brings with it an uncertainty. Again, it does not matter whether the Memer, devoid of principle, evolves into a “gender accelerationist” or a “groyper.” What matters most to the irony-poisoned individual is that the mechanism of chaos becomes functional, going through its motions at the behest of irony. Shredding with everything the notions of sincerity, we are no longer sure if what comes and goes is genuine. When our ability to distinguish the sincere from the insincere is lost, we could throw away everything. We can throw away ideas, mores, taboos, beliefs, hobbies, media we enjoy, media we hate, relationships we cherish, and feelings about people we want to kill; without a reference, there is no being. I will go out of my way to say that this article is actually harmful because it unintentionally obscures the much greater issue of the irony-poisoned individual having their conscience shredded into filings and melted into ingots for goliaths of compute. From their obelisks of dominance, the men who hold your capacity to reason within their palms drink your blood from goblets as if they were drinking the blood of Christ in remembrance of his sacrifice. They offer you fractional shares of their empires as their investments skyrocket by orders of magnitude through the forceful acquisition of land, metal, and flesh. There really is no reason to try and explain in any amount of detail who is responsible for your shitty life because it is being done thousands of times a second. The short-form videos explain it so effortlessly: it’s clearly the fault of this wealthy banking family, or this corporation siphoning and repackaging your data, or this foreign power we’ve been in a psychic battle with for decades. It’s definitely not your fault, and there’s nothing you can do to remediate it (return to this later).
Attention span (in seconds) and focal attention (in subjects) map directly to power. They are the devices of control for those with interests that almost entirely contradict your own, and they are the commodities in a market for which you have no access. It is observed through advertising efforts that it is possible to manifest purchasing power from focal attention alone. After all, this system is the lifeblood of consumer society. What many people have also understood through history is that this acquisition of cranial real estate could be rerouted for more insidious intentions. Ideas manufactured and sentiments sprouted from the seeds implanted by whoever from wherever, a link between this and a modification in cognition should blossom naturally.
I would like to analyze my own observations as a point of reference in this inspection of the matter. Why do I engage with it? The instant observation is that irony serves as a defense mechanism. I am overstimulated by things like sincerity and the truth; therefore, we cannot bear it with what little capacity is afforded. In the first section, I very clearly project onto the reader through this image of the collegiate urbanite. This archetype is a real person who genuinely believes the things they believe (somewhat accurately described in the section) and commits completely to their sentiments and their behaviors. What could this mean qualitatively? This means that there exists an element of envy in this equation, directed at this (somewhat) imaginary character. In these remarks exists a cloud of negative sentiment. I do not make these observations through an objective lens, for they are attacks. There’s the defensive element at play; perhaps I am threatened by social status or well-being? These are questions to be answered thoughtfully.
We may also look towards the perspective of irony poisoning being a symptom of an attempt at ascending the social hierarchy. Looking within, I believe I became irony-poisoned through the reduction of self for the sake of others. The act of exercising the self is interpreted as a sort of exhibitionism and is therefore frowned upon. It is not cool to talk about yourself; it is not cool to display emotion. We can see this in many forms, expanding this nonchalance ever closer to an eradication of the self. Soon, it will not be cool to breathe or sweat.
We return to the notion of defensiveness and ask ourselves, what could be said about this energy? I do not passively behave in this way; I find myself being rather active in my endeavors. This article is in and of itself an action, actively acted upon by a reader. That section was written not in response to anything directly occurring to me but from within the confines of my working space. I have never met a person whose irony poisoning was blatantly identifiable and whose irony-influenced behaviors were purely passive. One could speculate that an active ironic seeks comfort in others through exhibition, in the hopes that a genuine sensation be bestowed upon them. Look at my raunchy item! I wore this stupid T-shirt! There is no neutral state for the active ironic, for he is constantly in search of external satiety.
I’ve also observed that in being poisoned by irony (and by extension, poisoned by self-awareness), I have not been able to enjoy as many things as those who simply could not care less about anyone. One could say that the poisoned ironic is an anxious ironic, a depressive ironic. We can draw parallels with real mental illness. Irony poisoning could be a condition induced either by one’s surroundings or by oneself. I began to notice how I observed the world with more resentment and unwillingness to contribute and cooperate than my peers. It became debilitating, and I knew I had to picture life differently.
When in contact with the skin
Call poison control. Rinse your eyes thoroughly with warm water. We’ve got nothing to lose but our chains, our handcuffs, our gaudy, fur-lined handcuffs fit with an eye mask inscribed with a new-age health and wellness brand unconvinced of vowels or premise. It does not feel like a struggle, but it very much is one. It’s a sexy time, and we are the golden generation with nothing to be afraid of in any direction.
A solution to this great problem exists in a space without words. The solution does not require a blog post. If anything, the solution comes from the people you’d listen to last. The irony-poisoned individual requires a remedy for discomfort. Start consuming media you find to be below you, media that’s enjoyed by many people because it is so good. Take less pride in the esoteric and make love to what you see as shallow. Make love to that sentence and enjoy its structure, how I’ve put these words together in a way that makes me wince. Start relationships and conversations with people you would find insufferable or basic or generic or this, that, and the other. They aren’t inferior, and you aren’t anything worth writing home about; we are all uniformly distributed across a single axis, influenced by a regressive energy from within. Break free. Live and breathe in the fresh air. Or, breathe in the smog.
excited for lunch