Usamos bonés do Super Mario, camisetas do Lanterna Verde, anagramas obscuros na tatuagem, fantasias de animes desconhecidos, curtimos bandas cada vez mais exclusivas. Comemos o brigadeiro da Brigaderia do X, o crepe do Y, a cerveja artesanal da Z. A oferta é muito grande e variada. É fácil encontrar algo diferente. E o diferente é desconhecido, pode ser vestido como cool.
Este é o melhor texto que li nos últimos tempos: How to live without irony. À mesma medida que é profundo, é uma ideia simples. Recomendo a leitura. Nos encondemos atrás da ironia, do absurdo, do underground pelo underground, do diferente pelo diferente.
É a própria superficialidade das abordagens, dos temas, dos micro textos (como este). Poucos de nós se aprofundam nas matérias, estudam realmente a fundo os temas, conhecem as causas, levantam uma bandeira. Talvez porque haja bandeiras de sobra. Há muita informação, é muito mais fácil encontrar algo novo e abraçar. Ser o único hipster da cidade que tem a camiseta X com o escrito Y, que faz referência ao obscuro Z. Isso cria uma profundidade superficial. Bá, fui longe. Mas foi o que quis dizer. Uma profundidade aparente.
Desculpe-me a autora pela péssima resenha. Você, invista alguns minutos e leia.
Aqui, uns trechos que selecionei. Muita coisa, mas fiz questão de reler algumas vezes:
Take, for example, an ad that calls itself an ad, makes fun of its own format, and attempts to lure its target market to laugh at and with it. It pre-emptively acknowledges its own failure to accomplish anything meaningful. No attack can be set against it, as it has already conquered itself. The ironic frame functions as a shield against criticism.
Irony is the most self-defensive mode, as it allows a person to dodge responsibility for his or her choices, aesthetic and otherwise. To live ironically is to hide in public.
Prioritizing what is remote over what is immediate, the virtual over the actual, we are absorbed in the public and private sphere by the little devices that take us elsewhere.
I, too, exhibit ironic tendencies. For example, I find it difficult to give sincere gifts. Instead, I often give what in the past would have been accepted only at a White Elephant gift exchange: a kitschy painting from a thrift store, a coffee mug with flashy images of “Texas, the Lone Star State,†plastic Mexican wrestler figures. Something about the responsibility of choosing a personal, meaningful gift for a friend feels too intimate, too momentous.
This ironic ethos can lead to a vacuity and vapidity of the individual and collective psyche. Historically, vacuums eventually have been filled by something — more often than not, a hazardous something. Fundamentalists are never ironists; dictators are never ironists; people who move things in the political landscape, regardless of the sides they choose, are never ironists.
Nonironic models include very young children, elderly people, deeply religious people, people with severe mental or physical disabilities, people who have suffered, and those from economically or politically challenged places where seriousness is the governing state of mind.
Observe a 4-year-old child going through her daily life. You will not find the slightest bit of irony in her behavior. She has not, so to speak, taken on the veil of irony. She likes what she likes and declares it without dissimulation. She is not particularly conscious of the scrutiny of others. She does not hide behind indirect language.
Moving away from the ironic involves saying what you mean, meaning what you say and considering seriousness and forthrightness as expressive possibilities, despite the inherent risks.
What will future generations make of this rampant sarcasm and unapologetic cultivation of silliness? Will we be satisfied to leave an archive filled with video clips of people doing stupid things? Is an ironic legacy even a legacy at all?