Something I keep hearing more and more these days: Enjoy it with a sense of irony. In the last couple of years, Americans seem to have discovered or rediscovered irony, and we’re totally down with it.
On the surface, irony creates a more relaxed environment, as people take themselves less seriously (i.e., with a sense of ironic detachment). Below the surface, though, irony is nothing short of a path to freedom (ironic statement there), and tech geeks blazed that path.
Let’s be real. It’s hard to take yourself seriously and also attend a Comic-Con (the intensely geeky comic-video game-sci-fi-fantasy-et cetera annual convention). True tech geeks understand irony. How could they not? One walk through the Comic-Con floor will teach you all you need to know about irony.
It’s not just true geeks anymore, though. You see people embracing their inner geek all over the place—putting aside self-consciousness, convention and peer pressure to do what they want and not feel dumb about it.
I mean, someone in the last year or so obviously said I miss tights and leg warmers—arguably the worst fashion trend of the 80s—and then threw an old set on, because tights and leg warmers are back. In fact, they’re the height of current ironic pop fashion.
In general, people seem to be having more fun with clothes and hairstyles lately. Even if they’re not being ironic, they’re exploring more with their looks. It’s a microcosm of what I’m seeing all around.
During the New Wave craze in the 80s, you never saw a punk kid wearing preppy clothes. It just didn’t happen. But now there are preppy-punk styles, or people are wearing a punk outfit one day and a preppy one the next. And everyone else is okay with that.
That’s the bottom line, actually. That Americans are okay with it. We don’t pigeon-hole people quite as much because of their appearance anymore (for the most part, anyway)… all because some guy showed up to a convention one time wearing a Darth Vader costume.
Thank you, tech geeks. And thank you, Anakin. I like to think there’s still good in you. (Deep, deep irony right there.)