During the final week of October Hayden Anhedönia, better known by as Ethel Cain, uploaded a notes app rant to their Tumblr blog. In the rant she laments the unserious/joking reception of internet fans to her acclaimed album Preachers Daughter, complaining that these jokes trivialise the dark and personal themes the album explores. The artist goes on to label this phenomenon as a part of a wider “Irony epidemic” which plagues the internet and continues to undermine serious discussion about art and politics. However, the attitude Anhedönia identifies as the irony epidemic is nothing new.
New York, 1975
In February 1975, the spending of New York City on its social services had created a debt so high the city was unable to pay its loan debts. As a result, bankers refused to provide the city with more loans until they were able to reduce their debts. Eventually the city conceded and gave the bankers power to protect their loans. The bankers cut the expenses of the city by reducing its public spending and slashed the jobs of thousands of teachers, policemen and service workers.
Bizarrely, the public did not organise a response. The radical social movements of the 60s had disappeared. Adam Curtis in his film HyperNormalisation describes how the collective movements in New York had splintered into individuals believing self-expression could create political changes. These individuals watched the decline of New York with a detached ironic coolness. Ultimately hoping to channel the experience of living in a declining city into their own art.
In this way, irony became the way of coping with feeling powerless to a system much bigger than them. These feelings persist today as politicians across the globe have made cuts to social services the political norm. Furthermore, the looming threat of global warming paired with the inaction of our leaders has increased this feeling tenfold.
The Present
Since then, the internet has adopted irony in its meme culture. One of my favourite meme accounts, @Still_On_A_Downward_Spiral on Instagram, is dedicated to posting content emblematic of the dystopian times we live in. Whether it be Donald Trump’s latest conspiracy theory or Joe Biden’s most recent blunder, our current reality is begging to be parodied. Memes are definitely up for the task!
Credits: Photographed by Luca Bravo, via Unsplash
However, 1975’s New York also exposes the threat irony plays to politics. With its introduction came the death of the revolutionary social movements of the 60s. This is because by placing us on a higher moral ground than the people we mock, irony pacifies us. We forget that an effort to understand should meet the ignorance we laugh at. Perhaps to forget that, like the vocal ignorant, we have a voice too.
The New York story ends with a final warning. An entrepreneur emerged during this time who began to buy diminishing homes and turn them into luxury hotels and apartments. The desperate city granted him the biggest tax break in New York’s history. Banks, impressed by his plans, lent him money allowing this entrepreneur to amass a fortune whilst paying very little himself.
This entrepreneur was called Donald Trump and New York, thanks to the inaction of ironic hipsters, was now his playground.
With the recent election result, it seems as though the time for irony may be over. Laughing may be downplaying the threat of a new far-right, however absurd it may seem. As we laugh we dismiss, enabling the spores of harmful ideas to spread across social media and grow unchallenged. We need to learn from the ironic individualism from New York 5 decades ago and start fighting together.
