Isn't It Ironic, Dontcha Think?

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“Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio.”

Hey, and welcome to the podcast, I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jar bears here too, and this is Stuff You Should Know, the irony edition. It's a little on the nose, isn't it? I think so. No, sorry.

Let me try again. The isn't it ironic? Don't you think addition? Yeah, well, I mean, if you are our age or above, maybe a few below, or a weird younger person.

Yeah, you might have made fun of a lot of more of that whole thing, because I remember

at the time, like, people dissing on that song because they were like, basically none of

what she mentions is ironic. No, rain on your wedding day. I mean, yes, it's not expected, but it can be, you know, it's a pretty, it's very possible. It's just bad luck in that situation. That's one good example.

Yeah. What else? A free ride when you're already there? Hmm. No, not really.

No, basically nothing that she said was technically ironic. But the fact that Elana's Morris set, Canada's greatest hero, felt okay with basically saying, this is all irony and ironic, so much so that I'm going to name my song, ironic. That just kind of goes to show, like, how wide open everyone's interpretation of what irony is.

It's. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of notoriously hard to define, Olivia helped us with this, and she, you know, the other sort of cultural example she gave initially was reality bites. And in that movie, it's like, it's not a plot point, but, I mean, it's sort of not a

plot point. At some point, when on a rider, you know, is asked to define irony and she really can't. And then Ethan Hawke, who, you know, at the time was supposed to be like this super cool guy, but, you know, that movie, the way that movie has age, like you look back and you're like, he was kind of a big jerk in that movie.

Yeah. I saw something about that. Ben Stiller was actually the nice guy, but he was, you know, part of the establishment where he had Hawke was not totally nice, but he was like, the cool dude, but he was like, that's a guy that she wanted, right?

Yeah. That's the irony of the movie. But yeah, Ethan Hawke, he kind of makes her feel dumb by, like, defining irony really plainly, uh, it's when the actual meeting is the complete opposite from the literal meaning, which is, you know, at the time, it seemed like, oh, how clever, but it's really not to

just to read some explicit definition of one type of irony to prove your smart is, they missed the mark and retrospect. Sure. And even still, like, he's talking about such a narrow definition of irony that he might as well just kept his darn mouth shut.

Yeah. Yeah. But that's kind of, like he said, the whole point of this is, it's a really hard thing

“to define, uh, I think Olivia did a great job with a tough topic, uh, and, like, you know,”

looking at it from a historical perspective, I think helps. Yeah, I just wanted to jump in. I was silent because I didn't agree, but I wanted to say, Olivia did a great job with this.

I don't know if that's the right term, but it was very difficult assignment.

Yeah, you've even thrown out a lot of these very esoteric topics lately. Yeah, I don't know why. I guess I don't know why. I know you think it's because I just turned 50, but I don't think that did. That was a good to say that.

Okay, well, at any rate, um, yeah, this is something that I wanted to do for a while,

“and some people have written in an asked for it, but yeah, I think one of the reasons I wanted”

to tackle is because I don't know exactly who what it is, but also in the, like, myriad ways that it's played like a really big role in shaping society. In fact, there's this whole kind of schism between the ironic and people who resent the ironic, yeah, as we'll see that dates back hundreds of years. So let's get into it, Chuck, because irony is nothing new.

Like the 90s, Gen X slackers didn't invent it. No, not at all. Uh, the term itself comes from a character actually, not really a thing, yet in classical Greek. I guess drama, uh, the character was E I R O N, uh, with a little rooftop over the O. A little, a little puff of smoke coming out of the chimney.

Yeah, uh, eronic, yes, or iron. I'm going with iron.

Uh, well, I guess it would be the second letter, but that's German, I don't know about Greek.

But yeah, irony, let's go with iron.

“Okay, uh, but that means one who disassembles, and that was like, like I said, that was a character,”

and a lot of Greek drama and comedy and comedy writers would, uh, insert that character to accomplish, uh, like a dramatic or comedic goal, and one of the ways that they would do this. They would do it in a lot of ways, but one of the ways was as sort of a sort of like a, uh, a detective who would play dumb in order to sort of, uh, sniff, sniff someone off the case and reveal them as a fool.

Right, or fraud, or somebody who knows much less than they, they like to think that they do. Yeah. And it's, in a way, it's, um, you're setting them up to make a fool of themselves. You call it, like, um, paying out the rope that somebody's hanging themselves with. This ensures what they did.

And I guess Plato used to love this stuff. He would take off his robe and, like, twirl it over his head. Yeah. He would get so excited about using Socrates as an iron.

And so Socrates is basically like, uh, he would be really like, uh,

a smart me overly flattering essentially, um, it basically saying, please, you know, so much, please teach me and then he would eventually roll us a symbol of them in their entire identity. Yeah. Uh, in Latin that iron word became erronea, I are, uh, uh, in I A. And there was a Roman orator in the first century name, uh, Quintillion, who said,

it's basically saying something contrary to what you mean, which is what Ethan Hawke would kind of intimate many years later, uh, and the Europeans in the middle ages, they were like, yeah, that's that Quintillion definition is the one that we're going to use, uh, as like, uh, like an allegory on a contradiction basically. Yeah, and it was basically a device of speech.

It wasn't like, like, a whole book could be ironic. Yeah, or a whole TV show could be ironic in part because there weren't TV shows back then, but you get the point. It's like a one-liner. It was, yeah, exactly.

“That's what irony was, and it was, it was no broader than that.”

It was a very narrow, narrow definition, um, for hundreds of years until the Renaissance came along. And, um, they, the Renaissance people were like, oh, okay, we really like this stuff. They, they, I guess, got back into the critic irony, which was using people, um, playing dumb essentially to show how actually dumb someone else was, but they also identified the irony of fate, which is far in a way the greatest type of irony.

It's also called situational irony today. Um, and that's the one where, instead of somebody making a one-liner or soccer teams playing dumb, this is like the universe does this to you or life does this to you. Just something happens that no one had any control over, but it's just indisputably ironic. And that's, that's, to me, that's the money irony. Yeah, I think so too, because it's a recognition of a

thing that happened that wasn't like set up or contrived or written, written, to be clever or something like that. So I'm with you. Totally. And I think that that's a big distinction is we'll see like being clever and being the hapless subject of irony. I think that's a big distinction. Yeah, for sure. The German romantics really got into it again. They, like, most people had a lot of trouble defining it, but they were very into like, um, they were into it in a sense of like,

Yeah, and the way that they did it, so I was looking into this because I, I didn't, it took me,

I'm like, what are they talking about? Essentially, there are romantics where the first post-modern

people, they were the first to basically say, hey, you know, life, have you ever stopped and thought about life like, are there other ways life could go, um, what are other things you can do with your life? And they were essentially like the first to challenge conventional wisdom in the West as a group. And they essentially became, they, they prized irony because to them, that was a way of like

“thinking about things of like turning things over in your mind. So that's what the German romantics”

were into. And there were opponents to that, who were like, yeah, no, this is, you're going down to really bad path here. Yeah, one guy in particular, uh, George will villhelm Frederick Hagle, he was a German philosopher, but not a romantic. It was like, I don't like any of that stuff. And I think it seems like he kind of saw it as like a, um, sort of a, a smart, unlucky way to go through life. Like you're putting yourself above someone else and you're not committing to anything.

Kind of like the like hipster irony now, maybe. Right, exactly. Yeah, kind of like, you know, coming up on something that, oh, you love your life of milk and cows, huh? I guess that's all there is to life, huh? Yeah, yeah. So that was Hagle, Kyrgygard, who was the Christian ethicist. He, he really hated irony as well. He called it infinite absolute negativity. Yeah. And so in the way that Hagle like identified hipster irony as being just annoying and kind of looking down on people,

Kyrgygard kind of took that and, and multiplied it by all the people doing this and found like you could actually as a society lose your way and like lose meaning to life if you examine stuff too much rather than just living it. And so he essentially predicted the postmodern age, which we're in right now, that loss of meaning that happened because people started thinking about the possibilities that are out there, not rather than just actuality. Yeah, for sure.

As far as like, you know, as time marched on in the 19th and 20th centuries, it became a big thing and like the literary world, there was a essay in 1833 from a classical scholar, an English

“scholar named Conup Thurwall, who he was into the irony of fate, meaning like you said that's what”

we call situational irony now. But he was doing that through the lens of like, you know,

works of literature basically and that's where we get dramatic irony basically was from him,

which is the idea that the audience knows something that the characters don't and when that plays out, that's a dramatic irony. Right. And he retroactively applied it to etapistrex. Lots of irony there. There really is. There's a lot. So there's some in that. So King Les and Queen Jocosta give, get rid of their baby because it's been predicted that their baby's going to grow up and kill his father. So like, well, let's get this baby away from us.

Well, by doing so, their King grew up without knowing who his father and mother were. So he, he actually grows up to slay King Les without realizing that this is his father. So it happened anyway, they maybe if they had brought him up and not given him away, he wouldn't have killed them.

“That was a pretty big ironic twist in that whole play. Yeah. I think a lot of more said had”

a song lines like that. It's like adipiss. That's right. Killing his dad. And then there's more irony he'd up on on top of that, which is later on, of course. He didn't know that he had killed Les. So he seeks vengeance against his, the King's murderer who is himself. Right. And then there's also a bit of dramatic irony. The audience knows that adipiss is essentially going to close his eyes out. Yeah. Yeah. At one point he mocks a blind man for being blind, which is just

cruel no matter when you're speaking. I'm sure the audience is like, oh yeah, exactly. So yeah, I mean, like, there's a lot of irony. And here's this is the thing. So what was the guy's name again? I know it's made up, but Conup, Thurwall. Thurwall. Yeah. No way. That's real. The person is weird.

So Mr. Thurwall basically shows like here's irony. Here's irony too. Here's irony, but if you

pinned him or anybody else down and say, great, can you make a universal definition for irony?

one owner writer even says in reality, but it's like, I can tell when I see it, I know it, but you can't

really come up with a good universal definition for it. But you can go back and be like, that's ironic. That's ironic. It's almost like humans have a innate, like, sense of irony.

“Yeah. And it is funny now that I think about it that is so ironic that Ben Stiller was the good guy.”

Because he was genuinely like a really nice guy and treated her very well in that movie. But yeah, he was part of the establishment. So he wasn't cool. Right. And Ethan Hawke, like, what's he doing? Not Ethan Hawke, but what would that character be doing now?

I don't know. I mean, I, I hasn't said to say, but I'm sure, you know, he would have a podcast.

Still be right. He would be very much in love with his own, you know, mind or intellect. Yeah. Sure. So he'd have a podcast. Yeah. I think you nailed it, actually. All right. Let's take a break. And we'll come back and talk about irony a little more. 170 hours with zero complaining. They train under the hood. They train down in the pit. 270 hours means they're trainings legit. It's the smart choice for smart folk and care for their

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This is Pro's Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club,

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and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the survivor files. You just remember, this low taunting voice next to my ear saying shut up, come say anything. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up. Without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.

I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming. They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories about what's taken from them. There's stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to the survivor files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, so we've defined or at least talked about a couple of different types of irony,

but here comes some more, everybody. This gets a little dicey because verbal irony and sarcasm are like sarcasm is sort of a way of being ironic, but to me, it's different because there's a smartiness to it. They're lumped together a lot, sarcasm and irony. If you were to say, like if it's really raining outside, and the weather is really bad, and you're like, "Yeah, nice weather." That is irony. It's got a little smart, but not a smart me is like, "Oh, that speech you

gave was so great." You know, to a bad speech. That is super sarcastic and smart me.

“Yeah, I think one of us said that irony is based on one who disassembles sarcasm is to tear flesh.”

Yeah. You know, and that really kind of goes to show you, like they're both through something

I think it's meant to be a phase in the development of a person since the humor it's supposed to come early on and be abandoned eventually, but people don't abandon it, and they love Deadpool. Yeah, I try not to be sarc... I'll take that back. I don't try to not be sarcastic. I think... I think it just sort of fades away. I'm sure I am sarcastic sometimes, but I don't know. It's not the greatest look at it when you're a certain age.

I can't think of any of you being sarcastic. Oh, you can't. Oh, I can't. You don't have very sarcastic either, I don't think. Unless you're just trying to get a laugh or something. Sure. Yeah, I mean, that's definitely my humor's fairly ironic, but I like to think it's not at the expense of anybody. Usually, if it's at the expense of somebody, it's at the expense of myself. Yeah, self-deprecate. Yeah. That's another way to put it. Sure.

“That's how Ethan Hawks character would put it. Here's a word that I never knew,”

but I knew it was a thing. I've never heard of Lytotese before. Me either. But that's a word.

That is like a verbal, like understated verbal irony. Like if someone asks you, if you, if you'd like something or not, that you really, really hate, and you say, like, "Hmm, not the biggest fan of that." That is called a Lytotese. I'm so glad you're the one who said that, because it's not how I was going to pronounce that word. You can say Lytotes? Mm-hmm. Well, I looked it up, because I get, I'm frankly tired of being made fun of in Lytotese. You're a professional.

I'm getting there. I'm just, well, I'm just a lump. So yeah, it has to negate what the, like, I don't know any better way to put it. Like, yeah, I'm not a big fan, meaning you really don't like something. So it's an understatement, but at the same time you're negating the fan part. I don't fully understand it in the sense that, like, if you think about something too hard, like, economics? Yeah, yeah. You can suddenly, like, lose it and not understand it anymore.

That's, that's kind of how that is with me. Yeah, just breeze right on by the Lytotese. Exactly. Let's talk situational irony, because this is the whole reason for this episode, man. Like, there's nothing more delightful than me than a really good ironic twist. Yeah, and I feel like this can be played, and, well, I mean, it happens in real life, of course, but can be played in, in, you know, literature and movies and TV and stuff like that is like a,

is like a come-up in sometimes. Like, sometimes it can be very sad when situational irony strikes, but sometimes it's like somebody gets what they deserved in an ironic way. For sure. And then sometimes it's just like, impressive. Other times, most of the time,

if not always, there's a black comedic sense to it, or if you look at it deeply enough,

there is something funny about it. Even if it is sad, even if it is tragic, if it's still ironic, there's something, there's something more to it. There's something more

“valuable to it than just what it is on its surface, like a lifeguard drowning, right?”

Like, that's sad, of course. Like, if you put yourself in the, if you know the person's name, you know the situation of the death, like they were trying to save someone and they drown, they had, like, this life ahead of them, they left a child behind, you know, as a survivor. Once you know that stuff, it's not funny at all. But if you just step back and you say, a lifeguard drowned, there's something just in that irony, there's something

blackly comedic about it. There's something funny about it. I think everything has something

funny about it. Yeah, I mean, I laughed instinctively the second you said a lifeguard drowned,

because I didn't know it was coming. Yeah. It just made me laugh. There's nothing funny about anyone dying. But since that didn't really happen and you just said it, it was funny. But even so, it's not like you're celebrating that person's death by laughing, or you don't care that that person died. This is something different. It's separate. It's larger than that person's individual death in that sense. But it's tied directly to it. Yeah, I saw a comedian there today.

“I can't remember her name. Oh, what was it? But she was talking about like her worst death”

would be to be the only person that died in a plane crash. Yeah. And I couldn't figure out where she was going. I was like, I sort of get it, but I don't fully get it. And then she was explaining like, when you see the news reports, you know, those are playing crash and everyone's horrified. And then it's like one person dies and everyone's like, oh, well, that wasn't that bad. You're just the one person. Oh, man, you need to introduce me to that friend.

All right. Maybe someone will write in it. Or maybe she will. You never know.

There's there's some others who, like, a fire station burning down. It's so funny. Especially, especially if no one got hurt. Well, that's what I'm saying. There's like, you might not think it's funny. I don't even think it's particularly funny. It's ironic, but I get to either somebody out there who finds that funny. That's the thing. It's not always funny to everyone all the time that it could just be one person. My theory is that everything is funny

at least to one person. No, I totally agree. And I think what's getting me here with the, the this

“kind of irony being played when I think there's that sometimes karma attached to it. You know what I mean?”

Yeah, like that lifeguard hit a drifter with this car and drove off. Well, which kind of plays into the next one, which is cosmic irony, which is a little bit like karmic irony in that it's situational irony where, you know, the gods or whatever fate calls something. Yeah, that's essentially the same thing. If you ask me, my guard drowning or something. George Carlin, did you see his example? No. Oh, I sent it to you. George Carlin,

he basically did a bit where he explains the difference between what's ironic and what's actually not ironic. May I? Yeah, you said this to me? Yeah, I did. He basically said this. He said that if you are a, let's say there's a diabetic and he's on his way to buying insulin and he gets hit by a delivery truck. If the, yeah, see, if the delivery truck was carrying sugar, that would be like poetic and pretty funny, but just bad luck, really, according to George Carlin.

“Sure. He said if the delivery truck was carrying insulin, now you're, now you've got irony. I think”

both of those things are ironic, whether sugar or insulin. Yeah, but that was his distinction. That's good. Well, we've already talked about dramatic irony. That's the next one on the list. And that's again, when the audience knows something that the characters don't in Hitchcock had a very famous example of, like, let's see, you've seen with a couple of characters in a restaurant diner, just talking about whatever and a bomb goes off under the table.

If the audience doesn't know that's happening, it's some great tragedy or a shock. If you do know, I mean, it still might be a tragedy, but it's not a shock. If the audience knows that that bomb is under there, and all of a sudden that adds this real dramatic tension to what's happening. Yeah. Or like the, the audience, knowing that it piss will tear his eyes out. Right. Just kind of laughing at him laughing at the blind guy. Right. Like you got to come in your way, buddy.

There's another one I didn't ever hear this term for. I've always heard it is breaking the

fourth wall, but that is actually called romantic irony. And it's where the author, the narrator, I guess probably even the character, basically breaks out of the realm of fiction in search, addressing you, the reader, or the viewer. That's romantic irony. And the reason I think it's called romantic based on the German romantics and the love of irony, that in its purest form, the author is basically stopping the narrative to talk to you the reader and say,

look at how this guy's, you know, ideals and hopes and dreams are so far off from reality. Right. I take it as like them spelling things out for the reader, I guess. Yeah. I like it. You know, for the sake of comedy, like it made me think of like Albert Brooks and

“broadcast news. I don't remember that. You don't remember seeing that or you never saw that.”

Or you don't remember that part when you saw it. Is it the one where I'm mad as heck and I'm not going

to take it anymore? No, that's network broadcast news. No, I've never seen it. It was James Elbrook's

romantic comedy. One of the great movies by the way. I got to see it then, especially if you like Albert Brooks. I do. I love him. I think he's an international treasure. That's right. He was obviously born Albert Einstein. Fun fact. What? That was his name. Yeah. The two fun facts about Albert Brooks as he was Albert Einstein and changed his name. And the other is that he was brothers with the super day boss born. Wow. And the outsider's written by a teenage girl. Amazing.

It's the fact of every podcast. Wow. Thank you for that, Chuck. Yeah, it's he broadcast news. It's great. What's the great movies? Have you ever seen that work? Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah, I like that too. I didn't say I liked it. No, I loved it. Okay, so getting back to irony.

ironic? We're not doing that. And that would have been really annoying. So a kudos to us if you ask me.

Maybe we'll edit that out. I was just thinking in my head out funny. It would be if I was just

“about to say that. And like the words were sitting in my mouth. That's why it was being silent. No,”

I just was thinking that would be funny. Back to Iran specifically, they're right. Yeah, this Socratic irony is what it's also called or philosophical irony, where, you know, again, you're playing, I think dumb is usually the way that it's most often described or presented. But it can be other things like I think Randall P. McMurphy, Dr. Nicholson's character from one fluid over the kukus nest is considered philosophically ironic by being a sane person in a

mental hospital. And in doing so, he shows just the unjustness of life in that mental hospital, seems a little off. I don't know if off is the right term, but that's like here is where it's like, maybe we need to come up with other terms for stuff like this and stop using ironic like that. Yeah, that's where like when we get into talking about satire and parody,

like they always use irony. So I guess it's just sort of like a sub genre or maybe, you know,

not a sub genre, but it's own thing where irony comes into play. Sure, well, let's talk satire. I have a pet theory that satire is actually super harmful for society. No, interesting. I love satire. It can take, um, I like parody, but satire I feel like it can take the actual like anger and discontent and just release it as it acts as a pressure valve for society. Okay, we'll just laugh all this off and then the status quo can continue on.

And I think it actually is harmful to society. The better and more widespread the satire is. The less change will actually come along. Like society has to go through really rough periods where it's really effect real change and satire kind of prevents that from happening. I guess that's a kind of satire because there's so much comedic satire that you love in your life, you know? Okay, I'll go with like spinal tap.

Okay, I mean, the symptoms is a satire. Is it? Yeah.

“Is it? I don't know. Is it? Are you saying, is it ironic, do I think?”

No, no, I mean, we agreed to not do that. I mean, I mean, really, it is, I think it's a satire, isn't it? I don't know, man. I think it's a satire like American life and family and stuff. Yeah, I mean, I can definitely see that. I like I definitely see where you're coming from. I don't know.

I always kind of associate satire almost exclusively with like having a really important message

which is why to me, it takes that important message and kind of uses it to deflate any true feelings about it. Oh, interesting. Okay, like social satire. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Yeah, like I get where it's coming from too, where it's saying like, hey, we need to let more people know about this. A good example is, um, oh, uh, who was it? I think it's Jonathan Swift,

“the pamphletier or essayist, I think. He came up with a modest proposal in 1729 and he'd written”

a bunch of essays about how the Irish were starving and how they needed help and he just got crickets in return and then he wrote a modest proposal and then he basically talks about how the Irish just need to eat their babies and that will solve the hunger issue. A lot of other problems, too. Then he got, you know, all sorts of attention for that. Yeah, yeah. Of course he got attention for it. It's, it's nuts in some ways. It's funny in some ways. It's just important and it's very

attention getting. But how much change did it actually affect? I don't know enough about 18th century Irish history to tell you how much change it affected. But based on my understanding of satire over the years, especially sociopolitical satire, it probably didn't actually have that much effect aside from making more people aware of it. But does that actually make things change? That's my question. Yeah, that's a good question. Thank you. I think the proponents of satire

would say like just getting the conversation around it going is the point and the change comes because of those conversations. But I'm not, I'm not taking a stance either way. I see your point. Fair enough. And at the same time, one last thing, my position isn't that we all just need to

the status quo continue on when it shouldn't. Yeah, you're talking about getting some bricks and

baseball bats. Yeah, and really doing something. That's right. Taking it to the streets is Michael McDonald said. Camp is another sort of irony and that's a little more of the, I mean, I love camp. So I hate to lump it in with the hipster irony, but that's kind of what they're talking about, like an ironic appreciation of something. If something is campy, that's kind of what you're talking about, and you know, and a lot of cases. Right. Yeah. John, I'm John, it's speaking

“of the Simpsons. John Waters was on the Simpsons once. Oh, yeah, I remember that one. He gave a,”

he gave a throw away definition of camp. He said the tragically ludicrous, the ludicrously tragic,

and then Homer said, oh, yeah. Like when a clown dies, and John Waters goes well, sort of. That's funny. Yeah. All right, I think that's a good debt for a break. And we'll be right back right after this. Instant oil change. If your service lads on, trust the text with the train. That's us. 270 hours with zero complaining. They train under the hood. They train down in the pit.

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personality, welcome home. This is Pro's Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and love island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallow, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations, everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up the story. From best-selling authors and your favorite book

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When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months. I survived, and I spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the survivor files. You just remember, this low taunting voice next to my ear saying shut up, don't say anything. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up. Without a doubt,

he was going to hurt me. I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming. They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced, but these aren't stories about what's taken from them. There's stories about what it takes to make it out of life. Listen to the survivor files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

“Okay Chuck, so I think I said, like, I feel like humans have a hard-wired intuition for noticing”

irony for being able to pick it out, and it's been used as a device for a really long time, so much so that it's been found that verbal irony, saying the opposite of what you mean,

is basically universal, which is great. And kindergarten children have been shown to be

able to pick up a verbal irony, like at that young of an age. What's kindergarten age? These say it's like five? Yeah, like five or six, I think. Not bad. Yeah, agreed. I love the example with via uses, too. She's like, every society comes up with ideas like nicknaming a big guy, tiny. Right. But I love that. I mean, that is sort of a universal thing. I love the idea that in any

language for like small or tiny, like everyone gets that joke. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, it is universal. It's been used as a device long before anybody identified it what irony was. Like, remember, at a Pisterex was written long before irony, even though it was dripping with irony, so that in and of itself kind of shows that it's definitely been a part of of human communication. And I guess human understanding of the world for, from time immorial. Yeah, for sure. She gives a

“lot of examples. One of my favorites here is, and I think we've talked about the Schwangze before”

the Taoist text. And this was in like fourth century BCE. So it was a very long time ago. Right. And there was a story about a tree that was so twisted and narrow that it couldn't be used for lumber. So it was useless. And because it was so useless, it lived a very long life as a tree, which is like that that was the tree's purpose in use, you know, right there. I think that just proves my everything is funny in some way, theory, though.

Well, that's the Schwangze from 4th century BCE. Not a noted comedic dome.

There's trickster stories also are always dripping with irony, and they are super duper old

Tom, well, way older in Tom Sawyer. But the one that always comes to mind for me is Tom Sawyer using reverse psychology. The trick, his friends into taking over painting the fence for because he talks about how much fun it is and he doesn't want to share. So now all of a sudden they all want to paint. So he just gets to sit back and kind of laugh at him. That is really old archetype.

“I think Joseph Campbell even talked about that whole mythology series, which I've not seen. Have you?”

No. Well, he knew a thing or two about archetypes. He did. He was an archetype type. Archetypeist? Donkey Hodi, you know, of course, is maybe the first modern novel. There was a lot of irony in that. The biggest one is just that Hodi himself is a very elevated sort of ideas about his adventures. And the reader knows the whole time like this guy. It's got that kind of thing. So that's also sort of dripping with irony. Yeah. My favorite ironist of all time is O'Henry.

He was well known as the master of the ironic twist, like the gift of the magic. Didn't get any better than that. Yeah. I mean, that's just the one that everyone's read. Like every one of his stories has an ironic twist to it. You know it's coming. And he's so good at it.

You very rarely can see what's coming. But it's never, you know, quickly assembled at the end

out of whatever parts are at hand. Like it's the point of the story all the way along. He was just a master of it. And then another one that always seems out to me is the monkey's paw.

“Do you remember that one? I remember a little bit about it. I remember being scary like the”

monkey's paw moves in your hand or something. Yeah. Yeah. I granted wishes. But those wishes always came with an ironic consequence. Like the father wishes for a hundred pound sterling. And he gets it. But it says compensation because his son died at a factory. So like all of the all of the wishes, the way that they're granted are in ironic twists that don't pan out very well for the family involved. Yeah. And sometimes that's funny, but a lot of times it's tragic. Like I don't

know if the gift of the magic I was supposed to be funny. Yeah. Good point. You know? But yeah, lots of ironic twists. I guess he was the midnight shaman land of the literary world. That's right. There is something to that though if you're known for something like when you go see the midnight movies, you're just waiting for it, you know? Yeah. But he's like oh Henry, like you don't really see it coming. Mm, you know. Sometimes some are better than others. I will watch every

single one of that guy's movies. I'd love them. Yeah. I mean they're entertaining. Did you finally

see the one at the concert? The pop star? I did. That was a starter who directed it, right? No, no, he directed it. Oh, he did. She was in it. Oh, she was the pop star? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It was entertaining. And it went just totally nuts at the end, didn't it? Yeah. I mean, I thought it was a very fun bad movie. Yeah. Yeah. I wouldn't say all the movies are bad movies, but he has made some bad movies, but yes, agreed. They're all fun. Yeah, I didn't see the last one old or whatever. It's

cool. It's good. Yeah. I mean, it's a, I'm not sure I'm alive movie. It's a little, like a bottle episode. It's a little. Okay. It all takes place on this beach. Almost entirely takes place on this

Yeah. And I remember early in his career when it was like he was the twist guy

seeing, and there's some spoilers coming, everyone. If you haven't seen these burial movies. Okay. But when was it the village? Yeah. That was what it was called. Like I remember seeing that movie. And the whole time, I'm like, this is so like going to be revealed that it's modern times. Like I was just waiting on it. I had, I was told, maybe that's it. Maybe I'm just like super doopable because I had no idea that was coming. I knew that the twist to the sixth sense because

some jackass told me before I went into it, which is mean. And then all the other ones, I'm like, what? Every time. Which I need to like, did you say, hey, have you seen that new movie where

“Bruce Willis is dead the whole time? Yeah. I don't think that makes you do poble. I think that”

means you're like into it and like can park that stuff. That's a good trait. Okay. As long as it's not on the dance floor. Right. And then parking on the dance floor. What else, Chuck? Well, I mean, we can keep going through literary examples. Well, I but we should probably definitely mention catch 22 because we'll get emails. Yeah. If we don't because that's sort of well, it's a satire, of course. So you hate it. But it's built on irony. The whole title is an

ironic paradox in that the catch 22 of the film is that anyone who wants to fly and like a combat mission is a pilot in war should be removed for mental health reasons. But if you try to get out of it by saying like, I'm a section eight or whatever, then you're obviously sane for doing so.

“So you have to fly. That's what you should be following. Yeah. It's a great great ironic”

paradox of all time. And so I, okay, I figured out why I dislike satire because it hits you over the head with like, this is a problem. This is wrong. Of course it is. Like, I think that's what I don't like about it. I already know that there's a problem with that. I already know there's

something wrong with it. I guess I've never seen satire that I didn't already agree

was a problem. So therefore there's never any satire that really changed my mind about something. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I get what you're saying. Yeah. Sometimes I just have to reflect on something for 10, 15 minutes and then I come to the basis of it. And you got it. Something that I missed that I don't know if you noticed too, but in fight club, apparently it was meant to be ironic in that like these guys were rebelling against society and like a conformist society and then in doing

so they ended up creating their own fascist society of their own, you know, club.

“Yeah. Super conformist. Sure. So did you recognize that that was basically the theme of the movie?”

I don't, you know, when I saw that movie, I was in my 20s and so I think I was just more like, I think I just more like like the movie at chess value and I was like, oh my god, here we go with spoilers again. It's like, oh my god, there was no Tyler Dirt in the whole time. Like it, it's just kind of like, I thought it was a cool twist. Yeah. But yeah, like being older now and looking back, it's like, yeah, these dopes wanted to, you know, they're doing the very

thing that they said they weren't, you know, we're fighting against. Right. Yeah. I was totally lost on me too. I was super easy going like maybe I should wear like floor length for coats and no dresses underneath. It's good. Look. So I guess we can kind of get to that last point like whether or not irony is not a good thing. And I think overall, if I'm tossing out my too,

so it's which I'd basically tossed out $50 already so far. Yeah. I think cosmic in

situational irony is great and there's nothing we can do about it, but appreciate it. And then on the other hand, belaivered human created irony, if done well, then it's great. But most of the time it's not done very well. Yeah. I mean, David Foster Wallace, you know, the great writer and essayist wrote that irony in ridicule were agents of a great despair and stasis in US culture and that like in the 50s and 60s, irony had a like great use and

breaking down the hypocrisy of the establishment. But since then it is sort of, I think he felt like it was overused in the literary world. Yeah. And that that sincerity had kind of been abandoned. Yeah. And that even if you were being sincere, the reader wouldn't recognize it because they were so primed to, to write things as ironic, right? So yeah. Yeah. A really good point. Like

people who just kind of accepted things as they were and couldn't see the reality of something,

right? And there was a backlash to that. What was called the death of irony, which lasted about 10 years, who's where people like Dave Eggers came along and were like, no, I'm earnest. I'm, I really am just going to share everything. I'm going to wear my heart on my sleeve and you're going to suck it all down whether you like it or not. And it came across as smart me to a lot of people. A lot of people consider Dave Eggers work as very smart me where it's forced earnestness or

forced sincerity. And it clubs you over the head with it. And there's actually a Gen X E term now for that little period through, you know, the early 2010s where that kind of smarminus was

very popular, I guess, especially in literature. Yeah, is that millennial cringe?

That's a zinger. That is a zinger. Yeah, I mean, again, back to the generational look at things. I'm a big band of Eggers, by the way. I just want to say that out loud. Okay, great. I haven't read the most stuff, but I read a couple of his books. And I like them both. I was, I'd like to mix Queenie's humor a lot for a while. Yeah, for sure. And he does great work through his charity, 826 Valencia and 826 National. I did a thing recently for them. I read a

I read like a passage from a book that a kid wrote through his charity. And it was cool. They did adorable. Yeah. Was it any good? Yeah, it was good. Okay, good. 'Cause they don't publish bad kids' books. That's right. Yeah, but back to millennial crange.

“That's what Gen Z is about, right? Yeah, and we should kind of wrap it up with Gen Z because they”

have come up with their own version of irony. They're pretty preoccupied with it too, but they've taken it to such a degree that it's become absurdism rather than irony. Whereas irony is very, very well-defined. It either is or it is in ironic. Whatever the thing is, Gen Z just matches all sorts of stuff up. And you can't tell whether they were supposed to be ironic or not by the end of it. Maybe that's their aim. Confused the olds. Yeah, and they do a good job of it.

There's, um, it's called meta irony where if you're an outsider looking in, especially if you're not in the Gen Z age group, so you're not tapped into what's going on, we have a tendency to really kind of read into stuff and try to find the answer to whatever the thing is or understand it. Yeah. And if you do that with like Gen Z meta-ironic stuff, means or whatever, there's that, that'd be madness. There'd be madness. That'd be madness. I like that better. Yeah, I feel like I've

been hanging on by my fingernails this whole episode, and I hate those. Well, I mean, this is a tough one. Again, it's hard to define irony, and it's hard to talk 45 minutes about it.

“Which is why we talked 48 minutes about it. Good point. Uh, you got anything else?”

I have nothing else. All right. Well, that's it for irony, everybody, and that means it's time for listening or maybe. Hey, guys. Love the podcast. Look forward to new episodes.

I wanted to mention a couple of clarifications. Uh, the first one from the white boy Rick episode

was a pronunciation of his last name. Uh, it's pronounced Worshe, as in Hershey. I don't remember what we said. I don't either. Okay. It's Worshe. Uh, the second was Josh kept saying the phrase East Detroit. Uh, white boy Rick, the curry brothers, etc. were based out of the East side of Detroit. Uh, at the time of their prominence in the drug trade, uh, we mentioned this because there was a city just north of Detroit called East Detroit. Uh, they're not the same place. In fact, the city of East

Detroit even voted to change their name to East point, due to confusion and negative connotations about the East side of Detroit. Well, uh, keep up the great work. We can hurt from a couple of people, but that is from Mike and East point Michigan. Nice. Thanks a lot, Mike. We appreciate that. Of course there was a East Detroit. Right. Yeah. Well, that's like East Atlanta is an actual neighborhood in Atlanta. Right. It is East of Atlanta, but still not the same as saying the East

“side of Atlanta. No. And I think there's an East point around Atlanta too, right?”

Uh, they think of Athens. No, no, no. There's an East point. Uh, but I believe East point is south. Is it in that down near the airport? I don't know. I have blood trickling out of my ears. All right. Let's just wrap it up. Okay. Uh, well, who was that from? That's from Mike. All right, Mike. Thank you very much for that email. We appreciate it. And if you want to be

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“If you're a bookshelf and you're for you, page or equally important to your personality,”

welcome home. Pro society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, park group chat for anyone

who thinks pride and prejudice and love island deserve the same level of discourse. Each week working acting the dots between books, the internet and pop culture with your favorite writers,

“booktop creators and plenty of overthought opinions. Yeah, I'm so sorry. Listen to pro society”

on the iheart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I survived nine months

in captivity, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart and these are the survivor files. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to the survivor files with the Elizabeth Smart on the iheart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Nick Tutorial. You probably know me from NYPD Blue, the longest shot, or Spike Lee's Black Plansman. And on my no-podcast delivering happiness with Nick Tutorial, I deliver pizza to a new

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