Rylinks wrote: ↑Fri May 26, 2023 12:37 am
im certainly not guilty of thinking my nutso beliefs are so obviously correct that there can be no argument
that's the
implication irony has towards people disagreeing with you, it's not the
purpose of irony. The purpose, like I said, is self-defence, making your positions less... stark and plain and uncompromising and confrontational and assaultable.
Like let's say I go "I don't like cops, I think most of them are corrupt". That's a very simple, straightforward statement of opinion, and that makes it tough to ignore. If someone disagrees with me, they're gonna attack my position, or ask me what I mean, or tell me I'm offensive and wrong. And if they do, I'm basically in it, I'm in that fight, my words are public record.
But what I can do is talk about some story of police corruption and then go "a few bad apples, right?" Which makes my position equally clear to those who agree. BUT, if someone doesn't agree with me, then they have a very tiresome uphill battle in decyphering my real position and forcing me to admit to it and defend it. Especially because at any point I can just go "lol u mad" and then I win, because I typed fewer words than they did. And people know this! So if someone disagrees with my ironic comment, they're MUCH more likely to just roll their eyes and ignore me, or type a pithy ironic comment of their own, and then we just kinda disengage and we can both feel we did okay and didn't lose face.
Every word you type is a point of potential vulnerability, and internet irony is short and pithy. It makes it harder for others to engage with your true positions, which has good points and bad.