Irony

Older generations love to point out disturbing trends among Americans youth. "We certainly didn't do things like that in my day," they say. I would like to point out a disturbing trend in American youth that doesn't get a lot of attention: Irony/Sarcasm.

First, for all the English Majors reading this blog (which is none because no one even knows this blog exists which really sucks) I know that there is a very important difference between Irony and Sarcasm and that mixing the two up will ultimately lead to the death of the English language yadda yadda yadda blah blah blah. For the rest of you, I would like to explain the increasing prevelance of sarcasm in our youth today (being one of them, I'm speaking from a first-hand account). The sarcastic statements that teenagers today make are made with much less emphasis and said much more subtly than was once the case (of course, not being alive in any other generation, i can't actually verify what I just said, but its probably true). Sarcastic statements are thrown around like rice at a wedding in the daily back and forth between teenagers. It has become a much overused literary device that has outlived its charm and now defines a generation.

The problem with all of this sarcasm is its depressing. Sarcastic statements have the effect of making a person less happy than they were before they made the statement. Oh, sure, it might get a cheap laugh, but underneath that cheap laught is permanent mental damage. That's what makes this recent trend so disturbing.