Mister Gotcha | The Nib
The critic Roy Christopher has called irony “the most abused trope of our time, a ‘get out of judgment free’ card, an escape route, an exit strategy.”
Ian Bogost • Play Anything
sometimes people unfairly collapse reality via cliche.
Sasha Chapin • 50 Things I Know
Even bad images have something to say. So many of the memes that float around message boards and social media feeds are a complete mess, edges fuzzy and pixels popping out all over the place. But the poor quality becomes part of the point: It’s a marker of virality, a signal that the image has been shared and stolen by multiple viewer-artists who l... See more
Real Life Mag • Screen Memories — Real Life
There are obvious downsides to this line of thinking. It’s anti-intellectual, for one. But also, the incessant caricaturing and dumbing down of major life events numbs us to their significance. If a meme pokes fun at someone’s bad behaviour, it gives the bad behaviour a pass. Through our rapid meme-fication and IJBOLing, we obfuscate the evil of th... See more
Have We Lost Our Minds?
Exemplarity can be a curse. Deep frustrations and hypocrisies wriggle under the wholesome surface of small-town life.
phil christman • Small-Town USA
people are naturally censorious and love nothing better than to criticise others' shortcomings. And so it was that they seized on hypocrisy and elevated it from a ubiquitous peccadillo into the monarch of all vices. For, you see, even if there is no right and wrong, you can find grounds to criticise another person by contrasting what he has espouse
... See moreNeal Stephenson • The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer (Bantam Spectra Book)
