Irony poisoning.
2025 January 29My generation (Z) seems to have a habit of dismissing the things they care about as "cringe" or "lame" and the like; because they believe that It's not worth truly caring about or that It's cool to riff on things. frankly, It kinda pisses me off, but I can also be guilty of doing this. I'm sure you could probably pick a few pages from my site and see examples of me calling something I enjoy gay or whatever. It was only until relatively recently that I learned the name for this phenomenon, Irony Poisoning.
I say It pisses me off-and It definitely still does, but I can't exactly knock the people who act this way because in general, it seems that most people on the internet are heavily ironic, and showing genuine sincerity can leave you vulnerable to people who at the ready to judge or insult you. It's not a good feeling, I get It, Unfortunately you are not rewarded for being sincere online, especially in the age of grifters and assholes at every corner. Not that you should expect to profit from sincerity, you should be sincere because It's within your own character to be that way.
Other than vulnerability, there's also the insecurity of it aswell, people online can genuinely just be fearful of expressing true enjoyment of something, so they shield their feelings with a classic "it's kind of stupid lol." It's not stupid! enjoy what you enjoy! It's worth enjoying!
How people became this way is beyond me, though maybe I answered my own question with mentioning "grifters and assholes." You could probably make a good argument that social media is to blame and I'd buy it, but I was a child when social media platforms really took off, so obviously It's not like I could recount a time where people were more authentic than now. If I learned anything from having a personal website though, Is that people seem to be alot more earnest when they have their own webspace; and to my understanding that isn't, I had a friend who showed me a bunch of websites hosted on Geocities or Angelfire that were just, peoples sites, all their hobbies listed, what their day by day was, and anything else they liked. The internet was in It's infancy, and I imagine there was alot more of a conscious effort to abide to an "internet etiquitte" when interacting with people, that people soon ditched once centralized sites started existing.
There's already so many people who are these ironic husks of individuals who are incapable of showing authenticity, but will flock to others who do show It to only diminish a sentiment.
My head has just been filled with the words "Earnesty", "Sincerity", "Authenticity", "Irony", It's driving me nuts. As naive It Is for me to say this-especially online, I just wish people simply act more honest with themselve in general.
All of this came to mind because recently I've been "evaluating" the things I like. I'm a very sentimental person, which I think Is the explanation to why I never really stop having interest in said things I like, If I stop caring for something in the moment, I'll know I'll care about It in the future, maybe In a few months, maybe in multiple years. That Puyo Puyo Post I made a month ago was that line of thinking taking full effect.
I think I'm always gonna eternally be a bit of a child, so for a long time I've either tried to make justifications for the silly things I've grown to love, or end every converation I have involving them with "it's a little bit stupid haha." What snapped me out of this though, was that, nobody really cares, and I don't mean to say that with a cadence of nothing matters, I mean It in the sense that, you should not care to be percieved at "cringe" or the like because you showed honest to god authenticity for something you care about. What you enjoy is worth caring about, and I think is one of the more important things you can do on this earth.
Caring for something Is one of the most human traits you can have, don't lose it.
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