The Irony of Being Ironic

Have you ever had an issue when you are ironic but people take your words seriously? I am afraid, I just got myself one :))

I wrote this post, intending this to be my ironic take on popular blogging styles and advices. It happened after I read a Norwegian forum about one famous blogger, and I realized that I had enough annoyance built up in me. As in adult being annoyed by the tone of many blogs that sound childish to me – and the lists of tips given about how to make a good blog, repeatedly and boringly saying the same things. My concern was that the adequate readers will pass it by rising their eyebrows: “Is she doing this too now?” – without reading it. However…

However, it turned out that the post got quite popular. At least it got views and anonymous likes, more than I expected. Which made me wonder… Were these people attracted to its “catchy” title and did they take my “tips” seriously? Or is it this social media desease “like without reading”? Did the people get the irony of everything I said? Or was it better to include in the title “Irony Pre-alert” in capital letters? :))

The irony of rules in Rome

A fellow blogger Manja asked me in the comments if it was kind of experiment to check how many views this post can get. Honestly, no. It was meant to express my grumbling in a more fun way. In Russian we call this genre a “bad advice”. Like instead of being moralistic and say “Don’t do this (if you want to lose your weight or keep your partner)”, you go and say: “If you want to go up in weight (or lose your partner) this is what you have to do”. And everyone understands that it is ironic and meant as humor.

Here we have a problem of intercultural communication, maybe. That famous “bad advice” may not be recognizable. Or, maybe, irony translates badly over the internet, without the cultural context and the body language (and even worse – without the memes!). But I felt like suddenly this has become some kind of an experiment. And, honestly, I got a bit unruly. Did the people get what I meant? Or will they think “Oh, great idea!” and go on doing what I was making fun of? Do the readers need to be warned of irony coming up?

What I really wanted to say is that I got tired by blogging style that treats readers like puppies or babies. That the are called “cuties”. That they are considered so naive and stupid that you can push any lie/product down that line, ignore their good critical questions, remind them constantly of your activity at every corner like they are not aware of how to find you when they want it. Then also the new bloggers are advised to treat their readers like idiots, constantly reminding them of the blogger in question. And also fellow bloggers can be considered idiots, since it is necessary to leave the likes (without viewing the post) and comments with invitations to visit your blog, like they cannot find it on their own, and would not mind such intrusion.

Maybe, next time I will go and grumble in old classical style – without creative twists 🙂 I will try though to make it more classy, as I find the French especially being good at it: to grumble without bitterness and complain without being neurotic. I even considered starting a club with a fellow French blogger under the line “Grumble, but happy and not neurotic” :)) But so far this is all I’ve got. So far so good :))

If you have any anecdotes about you being ironic – I would love reading them. What a relief to learn that you are not alone with your comic situation! 🙂