Irony vs sincerity: say what you mean

Laptops, DVRs, iPhones, digital cameras, Facebook, Twitter,
Google, iTunes: they’ve come to define us, and they’ve come to ruin us.
For all of the technology, the constant dick-swinging of
newer/faster/cooler and the sheer amount of tools we have to
communicate, communication itself has devolved into the worst
misinterpretation of carpe diem: all of this now is just
condensation, a thin film of nothing that disappears under the heat of
day.

We speak in record time, but there’s no time to say anything. What
we mean means nothing anymore. We’re all connected, but we aren’t
connecting. We’re all-knowing know-nothings, no longer content to rely
on our brains and our hearts, happy to let tiny boxes tell us how to
live because we’re too afraid to do it.

If there’s a light in this tunnel—LED, natch—it’s dim, but it’s
there. If we stop trading in the currency of cool—time to bankrupt
that shit, you guys—we may yet pull ourselves out of this bedazzled,
skinny-jeaned mess we’ve made.

But until we do, we are The Irony Generation, and we are the worst
there has ever been.

But first, let’s not forget the other thing that came of age with
us—the internet. It ruined language. The “uh-oh” of ICQ meant more
than a new message—it told you nothing, in the fewest amount of
letters. Those who had trouble with “your” and “you’re” all their lives
no longer had to worry—“ur” would do just fine. LOL, BRB, ROTFL: A
shorthand developed, taking punctuation and capital letters with it.
When cell phones became text boxes, instant messaging language jumped
into our hands, and corporations figured out how best to bilk us for
effectively sending telegrams.

Facebook expanded from universities to the world and everyone’s
lives became open books. (The conspiracy theorists and hippies of
generations past wouldn’t have stood for it in their day.) Digital
cameras were packed inside of cell phones; every moment—no matter how
private, banal or incriminating—was game for documentation. News of
breakups and promotions was posted before it was told.

Next, the internet ruined music. (Not the music industry—the legs
had been wobbling on that decadent beast since the dawn of the compact
disc.) MySpace, iTunes, BitTorrent and mp3 blogs changed the way music
was consumed, but more importantly, the rate at which it was
consumed. The album died and singles danced on its grave. To keep up on
the newest stuff became so time-consuming that people actually made
jobs out of it—on the internet.

Traditional music media began to tank—the three-month lead for a
story in a monthly such as Spin was like a year on the internet,
completely out-of-date and disregarded, no matter how revealing the
story, how captivating the accompanying photos, how well-crafted the
prose.

“Music supervisor” became a sought-after, high-profile job. Bands
broke because their songs were played on TV shows or in iPod ads. New
artists didn’t give a fuck about the A&R guys anymore, they wanted
Alexandra Patsavas from The OC in the crowd instead. In a
parallel industry, DVD box sets exploded and people stopped watching TV
on televisions, skipping network time slots to download shows the next
day, store them for later or skip them altogether until the entire
season was available in a $50 box.

Irony has its uses—in humour, literature and arguments—but
mostly it’s empty and, in this age, cowardly, a veil to hide behind
because we’ve all been texted into submission. Our deepest thoughts and
feelings go unexpressed under a wave of iPod battles and YouTube links,
leaving us a bunch of pointlessly legginged, ugly t-shirted,
over-moustached, underfed lemmings—so scared to fall behind, to admit
that we haven’t heard that song or don’t get that reference because it
will make people who aren’t even our friends think we’re not cool
enough. We act worldly but never venture outside of our own scenes.

And now, through every fault of our own, this generation has decided
that we don’t have time to feel. We’re too busy indulging in the
most disposable lifestyle ever seen upon this earth—while
high-horsing green ethics to our elders—and writing hyper-literate
lyrics that reveal nothing personal—while eschewing proper music
education because it’s not cool to, like, try—and buying
clothes that have been machine-designed to look torn up and worn, while
buying vintage clothes at Value Village. This is a culture of empty
hypocrisy, false belief and entitled judgment. With so much effort
spent on the outside, there’s nothing left for the inside.

But that is bullshit.

It is OK to be sincere. Not earnest (nobody likes a keener) but
truth and honesty are all we’ve got in the dark of night, when the
party’s over and the machines are charging up for tomorrow. You don’t
have to like music that’s sung by people who can’t sing, mumbling over
keyboard lines from the ’80s—when they were children, if they were
alive at all. You don’t have to click on every keyboard cat link that’s
sent to you. You don’t have to watch British comedy. You don’t have to
take pictures of yourself looking like you don’t give a fuck.

Athough the tide isn’t exactly shifting, it is churning—a riptide
of sincerity, if you will. The hype of Vampire Weekend and Cool Kids
fizzled out—and are you really going to go see Thunderheist
again?—but emotionally fragile, downright beautiful records by Bon
Iver, Grizzly Bear and Fleet Foxes not only dominated message-board
talk but can still be heard during the chilldown side of a party a year
later. Lady Gaga dominates the airwaves now, but even she is in on her
own joke—we’re not set up for a next Madonna, anyway—and is so
aware of her limited shelf life that she’s pulling every ridiculous
move possible in rapid succession. Autotuned hip-hop is dying out.
Vinyl sales have exploded, and while there’s an undeniable hipster
factor behind its collection, it’s hard to fault listeners who want to
spend double the amount on a full record—plus flip time—to enjoy
the increased sonic palette and oversized artwork.

In Halifax, there are dance nights at bars and plaid shirts buttoned
to the top on the hottest nights at Gus’, but we’re also in the middle
of a singer-songwriter renaissance. For every noise band or joke
hip-hop group pitched as style over substance, there’s a girl with a
guitar or a boy with a banjo on a low stage in a quiet room, as basic
as music can get, stripped down to the bone. And there’s no one there
worrying about how they’ll look on Facebook in the morning.

You can give a fuck. And you should. Even though we’re
allowed to self-infantilize a lot longer than generations
previous—multiple degrees, multiple jobs, no marriages, no kids, no
equity; all this is fine into your 30s now—it doesn’t mean we have to
be dumb about it. If you’re just skimming the surface now, what does it
leave you for the future? Sure, five-year plans are out of style and
you can stay in school for a decade, but life will catch up to you, and
you’ll want to know who you are and end up with real relationships when
it does.

Ditch irony now—you don’t have to mean the opposite. Mean what you
mean, and make this worthless generation worth something.

Tara Thorne was never cool in school, if you couldn’t
tell. She writes and talks for money in Halifax.

This article appears in Sep 3-9, 2009.