Ironic Humor

How do we define it?

This is not simply dramatic irony, but rather, when someone we respect says something we would consider stupid or cruel but they say (or rather, we just know) they are being ironic.

This comes up because of the constant newsflashes around pewpewdie’s latest joke and overreaction to it, or Milo Y talking about pedophilia, or god knows what other “joke” taken awry *and also* the return of this thread about Baby It’s Cold Outside.

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A really interesting post that is marxist-without-knowing it, is here. http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/22/right-is-the-new-left/ I recommend reading it when you get the chance. But I'll summarize.

The post posits that fashion tastes act like a celluar automata ladder. Celluar automata are models where a single cell, or space on a board, only cares about the spaces next to it, and follows rules based on those spaces. And yet, from these simple rules, large complex patterns can emerge across the entire board.

The post asks us to think of a class ladder of 4 cells: upper, middle, lower, underclass. Each cell has the same two rules: First priority, to imitate the cell above it, second priority to not be like the cell below it. The scenario starts off with all cells being white. Or, all members of society wear white clothes. All the cells that have someone above them are imitating the ones above them, so all is stable.

But the upper class wants to differentiate itself from the middle class. So it changes to black clothes. Next year, the middle class also changes to black clothes, so they can appear upper class. Important note: this really really happens. Look at baby names http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/2005/04/trading_up.html

In the third year, two things happen: the upper class stops wearing black, and the lower class start wearing black. The upper class have no one to imitate, but they really don't want to be viewed as the middle class. But note that in changing to white, they imitate the lower and underclass.

Why is it worth being similar to the lower class and underclass just to be different from the middle class? Because the cell is confident. The way they were raised, the way they talk, the way they *wear* their clothes, means they could never be mistaken for someone as distant as lower class. Their only threat is being mistaken for middle class, who could pass as them and vice versa. (Similarly the lower class don't aspire in the first year to look upper class, it wouldn't work. Their best hope is to pass for middle class.)

So we see this cycle continue, until the upper class – being annoyed at being constantly imitated - hits on a new idea. *Purposefully dress like the lower class*. The middle class can't risk dressing like that, because they fear being mistaken in the wrong direction. The upper class style isn't the exact same as lower class, there are subtle differences they can use to reassure themselves, but it's the subtle differences that the middle class aren't expected to pick up on and will reveal themselves as poseurs. So the subtler, the vaguer, the less defined the better.

This lasts longer, until the middle class really feels safe imitating this style so associated is it with the upper class. The more punishment there is for being mistaken for lower class, the longer this stability will last.

The ideas about imitating those you want to be associated with (but plausibly could pass as), and changing to be different from those you fear being associated with (but plausibly could be mistaken for) are decent important lessons we can all reflect on.

But what really gets me is the result that: the upper class purposefully imitates the lower class as a way of shoring itself up. This is fascinating.

Mark Zuckerberg is famous for being a billionaire who wears a hooded sweatshirt a lot. This is supposed to be a sign that he doesn't care about his appearance. It is instead a sign of *how much* he cares about appearance. He could wear any random thing he wanted, but wears what the other people he interacts with can't get away with. (And this is true for many dressing-down computer geeks in good jobs.)

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It is important to remember that all class, all status, all appearance is an illusion. There is no essentialist truth of whether you are "at heart a rich person", that means you can't ever be truly poor. Only a series of subtler signals you trust to defend you from being seen as poor. Similarly for charisma, what works to clearly and boldly distinguish you from the awkward people in some situations will fail you in others.

But these illusions are very real and matter a lot. They determine how people treat us. And we've internalized them as true, so when we fight for them we feel we are fighting both for the tangible benefits, and the sanctity of our identity. And because of the relative class ladder, any gains we make make some others feel they are losing something (damn middle class stop thinking they are as good as us.)

It's also important that this constant struggle makes us constantly unhappy.

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Now the way tribal slurs work make a lot more sense. We all know how oppressed groups have taken words that were used to insult them, and instead use them affectionately with each other. The controversy of the racist and sexist terms I think obscures how common this is. Nerds use the term geek, military folks use the term jarhead, midwesterners use hoosier, extreme christians use the term fundie. All these are at once insults from the enemy, and affectionate monikers among each other.

This is sometimes described as appropriating the terms, and showing your power by taking possession of a word (like the enemy's gun) is one aspect of what's going on. But that overstates the process I think. If the word's meaning was changed, then that would apply to everyone. By acknowledging that the word is still a slur when it comes out of the mouths of people outside your tribe, you acknowledge the meaning hasn't really been changed. So that's not the (full) dynamic that's going on.

But under fashion theory, it makes perfect sense.

Imagine there are three groups in ascending moral order. Martians (who have been persecuted since they fled their exploding planet), friends of Martians who now feel guilty for all the persecution Martians have suffered, and anti-Martian bigots. The bigots used the term "redder" to refer to Martians. And one day, the Martians start using the word redder too. So some friends of Martians, wonder why they can't use redder. After all, they aren't bigots so when they use the term it won't have that slur meaning. How could you possibly mistake the friend of Martians for a bigot? Their best friend is Martian.

The Martians know you aren't a bigot. You aren't lower class. But you are middle class pretending to be upper class. And they would like you to know, that instead you are a middle class at risk of being seen as lower class. If you continue to try to rebel against the class structure, then they will eventually decide you actually lower class. And by the nature of appearance, the judgment of others that you are lower class will make you lower class.

You own internal beliefs about Martians and bigotry don't enter into it. No one can directly observe them.

And for now, no matter what your beliefs are, you can't pass as upper class. You will never be an actual Martian.

But, ahha, you the middle class friend thinks. You have so much credibility with some Martians – so many friends, so many hours spent fighting for their cause, you know how to cook their recipes, you adopted a Martian daughter – that many of them do consider you one of them. So you can safely use the term redder, and have used it meaning the better meaning on many occasions. Other Martians were fine with it.

That was elsewhere. This is here. You thought you could pass with others, but those "subtle signals" you trust don't actually shield you in all situations. There is no truth to whether, deep down, you are a Martian or a bigot. There is just the appearance, and at this point, you appear as a middle class person looking lower class.

Stop imitating us or we will get very angry.

(The Martian case is understandable here too. Tribal cohesion and identity is important to people. The Martians these days rarely interact with bigots. But they do interact with middle class friends of Martians all the time. They need to ruthlessly patrol the boundaries between their tribe and the closest.)

This becomes an identity fight (am I Martian or not) and everyone is miserable.

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Irony at this point should be obvious. I can write a blog praising Jar Jar Binks, a character associated with childish writing and lack of intellect. But no one thinks of me as someone who likes those things (I'm not lower class), so by praising him I separate myself from all the middle class people who merely dislike Jar Jar Binks. I like him at a higher level, thus elevating my perceived intellect. The real risky thing for me to do would instead to talk about how much I loved Lord of the Rings.

Check out how many film critics and academics love pro-wrestling and bad slasher horror movies.

(Hilariously, from a distance, I look just like someone who non-ironically appreciates Jar Jar Binks, and arguments about the different reasons we like the character look like two comic book nerds arguing:  http://www.theonion.com/articles/i-appreciate-the-muppets-on-a-much-deeper-level-th,16208/ )

When someone is being ironically sexist, they are not just talking about themselves versus the sexists. They are positing a middle group that is not an obvious bigot, but needs to watch themselves and toe the line.

Liberal egalitarians rebel against this analysis. A joke should be the same whether it comes from a female mathematician or a male mathematician, right? There must be something inherent in the joke that if we break it down, we can find the sexism or lack thereof.

But we're not really talking about the joke. In fact the joke (whether sexist or ironic) has trivial impact on like anyone at all. What it does is tell us about the person who said it. And there's nothing egalitarian in using signals to analyze who someone really is, we are by definition judging and ranking them already. So yes, an ironic joke has to mean something different coming from someone with real credibility. (Where by "mean something" we refer solely to "what it says about the speaker".)

We at once believe there is a difference, and yet will always resist it. It must be definitionally indistinguishable, and undefinably distinct. If you defined an element of a joke that makes it ironic (it has to be satire, or not delivered in this specific way, or…) then the middle class could safely start using it. And that is very much against the point. But if you said "nope it's entirely about who said it" then you would give the lie to liberal egalitarianism. A lie we can't resist right now.

Liberals barely manage to struggle with the idea that certain four and six letter words are off limits to them when talking about other races. How could they accept that a whole sphere of jokes is disallowed to them?

(Ideology is contradiction. The rules must neither be too clear, nor too opaque.)

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The point is that under our current social system, this type of dynamic is constant. The upper class (whatever group is respected most in any particular scenario) will imitate a lower class behavior, and some of the middle class will think they can imitate that, and they will get *smacked down hard*.

And because appearance is very different based on perspective, people go into these status contests with very different assumptions, and other people fight to disabuse them of their perspective and instead enforce the moral rightness of their own perspective.

This is of course, not the only dynamic going on in any social situation. But it's a common one and one designed to lead to misery. Thinking you are trending upper class but being told you're actually at risk of lower class is a huge source of anxiety, and will cause fierce arguments and internal anger.

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The scandal referred to as #Shirtgate (haha, I am ironically using a phrase that MRA types used to describe it, only because the reader knows for certain I don’t think it’s actually a scandal worthy of the word gate) is a perfect example of this.  

In short, a scientist who was part of the team that landed a rover on a comet, did a televised interview wearing the shirt you’ll see here http://www.newstatesman.com/sites/default/files/styles/fullnode_image/public/blogs_2014/11/shirtgate.png?itok=HZIEUWip .

It has half dressed women on it. Accordingly, he thought it was ironic. As evidence for his good intent, he has many signals typical of being a liberal hipster. In particular the shirt was made for him by a feminist female friend, and with all of that he presumably thought he was secure in the shirt being read as a signal of the upper class (unimpeachably not sexist) instead of the lower class (very sexist.)

If Ruth Bader Ginsburg had walked in wearing that shirt, we would have laughed. We should have laughed, because the image of her in that shirt is pretty funny. A bearded middle aged hipster guy, is less convincing of irony and thus less funny. (Even if his has other traits and history that might make him think him being sexist is as absurd as RBG).

Shirtguy publicly apologized, and vocal critics accepted this. This was shown as evidence of mercy, but is in fact entirely the point. He admitted that he is middle class (not blatantly sexist, but potentially so) and stopped fronting as upper class, and the upper class was glad that this boundary had been policed. That is the ideal class sustaining outcome. If Shirtguy rebelled and fought to prove his irony, he would have been relegated to lower class (assumed bigot), but it would have created an enemy and more dissatisfaction with the class system.

The public claim for this criticism was that the shirt showed how women are objectified in science and why many women stay out of science. This is entirely fitting. By objectified, the critics mean “the shirt reveals that the guy has intent to view women as objects”. If the shirt was worn by someone (like Ruth Bader Ginsburg) who was unimpeachable, then it couldn’t represent that. The shirt is saying that to them because of who wears it, and the other signals he flies.

His actual, true inner intent is irrelevant of course. It can’t be measured objectively, and is just something people use various signals to theorize about.

He thought (in another context) he was upper class enough to wear irony. In the more public context, he was not.

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Reading this, it’s easy to blame the upper class (of any particular scenario). But even the upper class is oppressed by this. Mark Zuckerberg’s dress style is still determined. And even when enforcing these class boundaries, they are unhappy - afraid, angry, and even paranoid. The cycle demands sympathy for everyone involved.

And the band for the middle class, the distance between unimpeachably pure and possible bigot is much thinner than we expect, especially when we add in variance for different perspectives. We are all surrounded by class anxiety, even those at the top.

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So now I have to reevaluate how I use irony. I like irony, it makes me laugh a lot. Jon Bois is one of the funniest writers I know, and he's clearly "separating himself from middle class writers by showing he can write like a lower class (stupid) person but with subtle distinctions so we know he doesn't really mean it.”

Even if you think Jon Bois subtly distinguishes his work from the targets that his irony is mocking (and there is real skill in his writing), I’ve read other convincing ironists who simply copy paste what someone from the lower class wrote, but under their handle. It’s still funny.

But I'm also uncomfortable being part of the status cycle of misery. It's possible that there's no way I can escape status and can never be 100% pure. We have to make choices. But this honestly feels like a fairly direct instantiation of the class ladder, too direct to just ignore.