Irony Deficiency
On Superman, Comments, Art, and Why Everyone Else’s Media Literacy is “Cringe” (Trigger Warning: Funny Videos)
I. STFD
“I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.”
—Blaise Pascal (from one of his “Letters Provincialies”, 1657)[Author’s Note: This is irony, from the 17th Century]
Here at the Foundation, we actually choose, on purpose, to do slightly longer-form essays (10-15 min. reads, typically). And we send them out them sparsely, rather than the daily or weekly. Alas, I’m all too aware of how these choices hamper my own meteoric rise to Substack stardom. <again,… /irony>
But then again, we want to help people be more Media Literate (ML, for short) and, in the words of influencer “Zoe Bee”, ML is first and foremost about STFD (Slowing The F!ck Down). So maybe we’re just practicing what we preach?
Or perhaps it really is laziness, in the tradition of Pascal? Who knowns?
II. ARE ALL COMMENTS UNDER THE INFLUENCE(R)?
STFD was one of the main takeaways from Ms. Bee’s video essay YouTube and the Death of Media Literacy (9 months old, ~400K views). That video is a charming hour-and-a-half long video1 where she answers that eternal question, “Why are folks’ social media comments so f*cked up?”
Her premise is that social media has broken us (individually, and as a society) and she wants to figure out how to help by improving Media Literacy. I agree with all of that—and I’m here to tell you,—TL:DW style—she comes up with some really great insights and ideas:
Besides STDF, there’s also the Idea that ML is about “humility” (ie, receptive to hearing challenging ideas). I made that same point in a previous Substack about so-called “post-truth”.
Ms. Bee also highlights the difference between ML and just having an opinion (ie, one is analysis, one is just “vibes”). She does all of this by conducting a pretty thorough review of the entire field of ML, even including the Jim Potter meta-conclusion that the field is so discordant that it doesn’t even have an agreed-upon definition of ML.2
Good meat. And that all takes up about the first third of the video. In fact, if she’d left it there at a snappy twenty minutes, I would’ve called it stellar. But, to do this, she’d have had to (as writers say) ‘kill her darlings’.3
Authors always hope to figure out which part of the story/message work and which ones don’t. And, if you’re trying to simplify and explain a super-complex concept like ML, the worst thing you can do is to try and fix it by committee.
Unfortunately, Ms. Bee tries to crowdsource the collective wisdom of her friends (and fellow influencers/content creators) to simplify and explain the messy state of ML. Spoilers: they don’t. Not really. They have some interesting ideas, but ultimately it just adds to the cacophony.
By the end, she half-heartedly quotes the queen of ML FUD (a professor who I’ll refrain from mentioning so as to not increase her damage) which of course does nothing to help matters. Not being word salad isn’t a virtue if you’re just plain wrong.
III. THE DEATH OF THE (IRONIC) ARTIST
I will say this, Zoe Bee’s ultimate answers are sort of kneecapped by a couple of things.
First, just as with the ML field in general, she fails to center the addiction to algorithms as the primary culprit for, well… everything! (ie, all the ills she points out).
She does come maddeningly close, though: at one point, she correctly compares our media diets to food addiction, but then tosses that aside with the ‘We like fatty, salty foods, too but…’ line of chiding that just blames the victim for not having enough self-control. A missed opportunity would’ve been the links between social media and such maladies as eating disorders and body dysmorphia. I think that would’ve been a natural exploration to make.
And second, her point is also undermined by her (apparent) need to throw shade at a wonderful book called A Firehose of Falsehood: The Story of Disinformation (World Citizen Comics). I found her critiques of this book by far the weakest part of her video—bordering on silly, really. For example, at one point she goes on a mini-tirade about one metaphor solution offered by the book. But, then, about 30 minutes later, she suggests the same solution herself, verbatim.
As the kids say, whatevs.
For my part, I found all of the solutions in that book spot on. You should do both—but if you can only spend an hour-and-a-half on either this video or that book—no contest: go with the book.
For her ultimate answer, she arrives on the idea that creators are also responsible for ML (which is neither a novel idea, nor an answer to her original problem but seems to just be a way to make herself feel better about the problem, which, again, is soooo very 2025).
But she deserves a lot of credit for grasping at all of this. Plus, she does hit on something that I think is worth a few minutes, because it’s a topic that sort of sums up the modern state of ML.
Who gives all of this “content” meaning?
IV. You Can Be Pro Media Literacy and Pro “Death of the Author”, But Why Would You?
“Anyway I ratio-ed that guy on Twitter. So I guess I win.”
—Jake, “Man Carrying Thing” (YouTube channel)[Author’s Note: This is irony from the 21st Century]
In contrast to her long video essay (which, I repeat, I *do* recommend you watch…especially if you think I’m being unfair somehow) I’d now like to highlight two much shorter (<10 min and <2 min) and, for my money, genius YouTube works that drive home the same ideas.
First, from Nadia at the Woman Carrying Man channel (from only a month ago, already at 370K views…her most popular one) entitled Media Literacy and the Superman Trailer
And then, from Nadia’s husband Jake and his Man Carrying Thing channel (two weeks ago, already at 273K views) entitled pretty much 90% of bad media literacy …I won’t summarize this. Just check it out.
My takeway (from this and …<waves arms around at everything>) is that people who comment on these things are not necessarily stupid or what-not…it basically comes down to: they are incapable of…humor.
But not just any humor: specifically, they’re incapable of IRONY.
Somewhere along the way younger viewers have lost the ability to understand irony.
I’m hardly the first person to highlight this…but, it goes a long way to explaining our current predicament (as our Constitutional Republic/Democracy circles the drain).
Quick thought experiment: If I tell you, “Man, that Darth Vader. He’s my hero.” Do you think that’s a joke?
As a young man, Anakin (Darth Vader) was a merciless killer of children and countless multitudes. As an old man, he tried to corrupt his own son into helping him kill his boss because he was too much of a pussy wimp to do it himself.
Yes, he had a 5-minute redemption arc at the very end. And yes, his costume and persona was undeniably cool. Not saying otherwise.
But, when I say “…He’s my hero.” I’m making a joke. A joke is a lie that makes you laugh (in that case because it’s a cartoonish exaggeration…I’ve taken a fetish for a cool helmet and some caped swagger and, because of that, claimed that I think he’s a hero. Get it? Exaggeration!).
And a lie that reveals a deeper truth? That’s called Art.
So—and now here’s where I turn serious—I believe when generations of young men are raised by video games and social media algorithms which, instead of exposing them to true Art, instead focuses all of their in-game rewards systems on (unironically) encouraging more and more outrageous and depraved things? Well, I think we end up drumming the irony out of them.
These same young men were the ones who claimed that Zack Snyder’s Superman (the one who, technically, based on behavior alone, is the villain in Man of Steel…go back and check the plot. You’ll see I’m right.) were ‘more honest’.
If Superman acting badly was done ironically, in a scene or two, like at the end of Superman II (1980) when Superman roughs up the bully who had earlier bullied him in the bar [not a heroic thing to do, but we get it, ‘cause it’s a human thing to do] then that’s true to the character…the entire of essence of Superman is that HE’S BASICALLY A GOOD GUY.
But in “Man of Steel” when Pa Kent tells him not to save the other kids, or later on, when he kills4…that’s not an edgy or “dark” retelling of the story. It’s just…wrong. It’s like the firefighters in Farenheit 451. Once you become an arsonist, you’re not a “darker, edgier” firefighter. You’re just a piece of sh*t criminal.
V. First They Came For My Jokes
We’ve all been radicalized by the algorithms. So, this video (an explainer about the psychology of the MAGA cult) goes into it, but the basic idea of subsuming our individual identities to that of a group applies to all of us, people on both sides, politically. Sure, anyone who’s cheering for the concentration camp in Florida is a Nazi. Obviously.
But the political discourse is pretty crazy on the other side, too. Consider some other examples:
How about a professional actress who wasn’t allowed to perform her one-woman show when it was discovered that she intended to play characters of other racial backgrounds. When she rightly pointed out that that’s exactly what actors do, y’know, act (Think: Hamilton, for example) and that she had every intention of being completely respectful—indeed, honoring those she was portraying with her art—she was ignored and, as they say, cancelled.
In the before times, this type of reaction (and cancellation) would be comedy. Irony. Now, on the left it is normalized and called progressive.
As a writer, this is one of my favorite, from a few years ago: A writer who didn’t reveal anything about themselves besides their age penned a fairly cool story called “I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter” (the title was based on a meme that typically appeared from those who were critical of the emerging Transgender ideology).
The story was good enough to be featured in Clarkesworld (a professional online mag that typically showcases established writers, and not new ones). If anyone bothered to read and anlayze the actual content of stories anymore and had done so here, they would’ve seen that it was—first, and most importantly—an amazing story (an “Idea” story, using the MICE quotient). That idea being an interesting reflection upon just what identity is (or isn’t).
Now, start your irony meters.
Instead, it was also “cancelled”—taken down by the ezine after an intense online backlash, including by any number of prominent SF writers, all of whom were assuming something about the author’s identity (they were a TERF, they were a Nazi, etc).
Reportedly, the author became borderline suicidal, and, after the backlash was the one who requested the story be removed.
Later on, once it became revealed that the author was in fact, reportedly, a “trans woman”, the decision was made to go ahead and republish it. (Again, reportedly) the story was vetted by “sensitivity readers” before its republication, with the change being that its title would now be “Helicopter Story”; and the magazine apologized for any harm the story (under the previous title) had caused. You know, from the previous title.
Under that new title, the story became a finalist for the 2021 Hugo Award for “Best Novelette”. It’s unclear if other, more subtle changes were made but I don’t think so. The original text can be found here.
Now, there are so many levels of irony here, you can hardly count them all.
But, to our point, if you are looking for the opposite of ML (that “humbly listening to opposing views” bit we mentioned earlier), you need look no farther than some of the rhetoric around the issue of “representation” in Art.
No one should be discriminated against. Full Stop.
But the ridiculous overreactions (in just about every conceivable direction) regarding this story are peak poor ML.
Just. Imagine. the nuclear-level upheaval online (and in the literary community) that would happen now if “Isabel Fall” revealed themselves to be some straight, white, Boomer with a wife, two kids and a parakeet name “Apache”?
Ouch. (Or, maybe we could all just judge Art first on its own merits, before we even consider the author?)
Along those lines, another counter-example of questionable media literacy is the marketing in the publishing industry (or, more accurately, how people are manipulated by it). Consider an amazing novel called Yellowface (2023) by R.F. Kuang.
Yellowface is the tale of a struggling young female author named Juniper Song Hayward (Pen Name: June Hayward), who is intensely jealous of her best frenemy, fellow author Athena Liu. Former classmates in Yale writing seminars: Athena is a wildly successful author whereas, again, our first-person narrator Juniper is not.
Athena dies suddenly while her yet-to-be-published manuscript is in Juniper’s possession. The rest of the book follows the fallout of Juniper rewriting the book into a quote-unquote new work, and then claiming that new work as her own.
There’s a lot to chew on here…and the fact that R.F. Kuang is, in fact, an Asian-American author sort of inoculates her from some of the firestorm that these sorts of provocative plots might generate (she got to keep the title, for example).
But one cannot help but wonder if the exact same manuscript, submitted by someone who was white, would’ve have been rejected out of hand. If you think I’m overstating or somehow being racist by asking that, consider the author’s own words, where she intimates that her plot was more like a whistleblower’s account of what the publishing is really like:
It's really funny that we've been marketing Yellowface as this ridiculous, absurd satire when really it's not even on the level of social realism compared to what is actually happening in publishing.
—R.F. Kuang on the CBC (https://www.cbc.ca/arts/q/r-f-kuang-q-tom-power-interview-1.6849185)
The bottom-line is that, maybe, we all should focus less on group identity and more on individual merit? Generally we could gather some diverse experts (not just influencers, for example) to help us sort if out? Not only for ourselves, but, as was pointed out with the cult-dynamics of some groups, for society, itself?
I vote ‘yes’ (voting is good, that’s an issue that might come up more often in upcoming years).
But, yes: In our Art. In our allies. And in our lives.
VI. Coda
From Pee-Wee Herman’s Big Adventure (1985):
Pee Wee Herman (holding up a pen): “Exhibit D! Jimmy, what is this?—Too late! Chip?”
Chip: “Uhhh, looks like a pen…”
Pee Wee Herman: “Exactly. I bought this pen one hour before my bike was stolen. Why? What’s the significance? …I DON’T KNOW!”
Finding meaning in art is like the pen, man.
<nods knowingly>
But beyond that? Yeah, obviously, there’s only way to end this essay:
Gyða Valtýsdóttir is an Icelandic, Ambient, Punk Cello musical act, although if I’m being completely honest, I cannot hear the cello…
Peace Out, and I’ll see you all in the theater soon, my fellow (true) Superman fans!
For the record, our Foundation’s preferred definition is “Navigat[ing] the media landscape as mentally healthier and more fully empowered participants in society“
In other words, the sort of editing and restraint that Blaise Pascal was talking about.
And we’re not just talkinga about Zod, dangit—don’t forget all of the innocent humans killed in the melee that he doesn’t give a thought to. Remember, that was the impetusu for the next movie, yes?
The dead-eyed gaze from some young people in the face of sarcasm (even when excellently delivered!) deserves it's own joke, but the young people in question wouldn't get that either.