What the FUCK is irony? I've been trying to figure this

pic is ironic, it relies on the viewer knowing more than it shows, and then socratesing them to tears for suspecting it meant what it clearly means. that's basic irony.

http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/shaftesbury1709a_1.pdf

Read this.

Then watch some MDE or something.

I ironically enjoyed your post. Or did I?

Literally, a lie. Saying one thing while meaning another. The idea being to say something substantive through and by paradox, meaning the literal sense as well as its contradiction hold simultaneously.

>>9668135
This is how I've been recently understanding it.

File: 1447720125906.jpg (82KB, 721x1024px) Image search: [Google]

82KB, 721x1024px

>>9668087
I always thought irony was just about subverting your expectations. When you expect something to be a certain way but it's actually something else entirely or the opposite of what you were expecting.

"No Graffiti" graffitied onto a wall.

>>9668114
great read, anon

>>9668227
in this case Futurama is the most ironical work I've known

>>9668094
in this case it's Infinite Jest, which is infinitely impenetrable for me

>>9668094
I don't get the pic, can you explain it somewhat? Also "socratising" :/

>>9668247

Socra-teasing***

>>9668257
Lmao
Don't play games with me please I haven't read my greeks

>>9668087
Irony has different meanings.

There is dramatic irony, where the viewer or reader knows something that the character doesn't, and the author creates a tragic or comic effect, or both, by having a character or several characters be oblivious about something the reader or viewer knows. There is irony in the rhetorical sense, where you say something but mean the opposite. This is basically the technical term for sarcasm. Finally, there's the newest definition of irony, which some purists get angry at, but is here to stay, because people using new definitions for a word is how language changes; anyway, this is the most popular use of irony: it's when something happens that subverts your expectations, typically in a dark or comical way, or even when there's a sick coincidence.

Indeed, I think all these meanings, only somewhat connected, are evidence of a poor use of language. Irony has become a catch-all phrase, and we need to somehow reclaim some clearness in its use, perhaps use new terms for some of these concepts.

>>9668087
Here you go:

Hyphenated
Non-hyphenated

That's ironic.

>>9668247
socrates used irony as a philosophical method.

the picture looks like an IM, but only looks like an IM screen if you're used to looking at IM screens. because of what you "know" people who are used to IM screens assume that it is an IM message without text and it's not. It's clearly just coloured shapes is a more valid argument than it's an IM screen, because it doesn't rely on a random assumption of IM users.

Most irony works like that. The oracle at Delphi used give out lots of ironic statments:
>Should I go to war with this empire, oracle?
>You'll destroy a great empire if you go to war
>goes to war
>gets rekt
>What the fuck, oracle?
>lulz I said you'd destroy a great empire, i thought you knew I meant your empire would get rekt.

Read the Greeks, they're fun.

>>9668280
Oh okay, cool. I understood that much but thought there was some nuance I was missing in what the reader was meant to assume the IM screenshots were saying. Gratzi-- should I start with allegory of the cave?

>>9668290
Start with the Pre-Socratics if you want to get into the Greeks for philosophy. If you just want to read Socratic irony, get Plato's dialogues or Oedipus Tyrranus if you want something not philosophical.

read E Unibus Pluram, aka Infinite Jest in only 60 pages.

>>9668330
i've read it. Otherwise i wouldn't've mentioned chandler. Perhaps it's time for a re-read.

>>9668087
dramatic irony: things turn out the opposite of how they were supposed to

(((irony))): overly self-conscious bullshit that only zogged narcissists engage in