A recent study from the University of Exeter reveals that irony has evolved into a potent conduit for the dissemination of pernicious ideas within online spaces.
Researchers contend that the employment of irony is on the rise in contemporary politics and radical virtual communities, as it aids individuals in comprehending and navigating significant political and economic transformations.
Concepts, jests, memes, and imagery have emerged as catalytic forces propelling new social movements, becoming intricately intertwined with the ascent of the alt-right.
A key role
According to the study, delving into the realm of irony can shed light on the cohesive mechanisms behind influential political coalitions, such as the Brexit campaign, even when participants hail from disparate backgrounds or ideological frameworks. Irony, the study posits, possesses the capacity to elucidate the mobilization of political movements, possessing the power to rally individuals and instill commitment towards emergent, ambiguous, equivocal, contentious, or paradoxical ideas.
Irony generates a fervor and vitality that significantly impacts individuals’ convictions, transforming them from mere propositions into unwavering beliefs, imbuing them with a sense of potentiality, and compelling people to take action.
The research team conducted an examination of irony across diverse groups, encompassing realms like Black American abolitionist literature, contemporary Black Lives Matter activism in Ghana, the so-called alt-right, the reverence towards Greece’s socialist party PASOK, and the fervently pro-gun, millenarian Boogaloo Bois.
Challenging the status quo
“Irony enables people to critique the crippling political and economic restructuring of their worlds, to navigate an uncertain present, and to reorient toward the future,” the researchers explain. “Contemporary economic governance, entrenched inequality, growing social complexity, and the breakdown of established political certainties make it harder to imagine plausible near futures and trace political cause and effect.”
Many individuals engaged in campaigns, activism, and political leadership find themselves increasingly challenged when it comes to devising effective strategies and envisioning societal changes that do not necessitate complete upheaval.
The employment of irony provides a means for individuals to confront political problems and advocate for certain ideals, even when confronted with a disorienting sense of existential uncertainty. Although the exact nature of these ideals may not be entirely apparent, irony enables the formation of political collectives and facilitates their alignment towards a shared objective.
Grappling with change
Moreover, irony possesses the capacity to bring together emerging collectives that are not driven by unequivocal convictions but rather by partial certainties that offer speculative avenues for progress in a world undergoing tumultuous transformations.
“By playing with incongruity between text and subtext, or between points of view, irony provides new ways of making meaning and make sense of a fraught, contradictory world. Irony can provoke strong feelings, ranging from laughter, to disorientation, to the camaraderie that comes from being in on the joke, particularly among political movements that have significantly taken shape online,” the researchers conclude.
“To participate in such communities does not require one to ‘believe’ in any specific ideology. The effervescent pleasure in participation comes from the experience of being part of a living language community, which is always evolving through the innovation of new vernacular.”
