Alcohol, marijuana, cigarettes, epi-pens. You’ve heard it before, and you’ll hear it again: these substances can lead you to addiction. However, a new study by Michael Pollan, amateur singer-songwriter and author of Your Mind on Plants, shows that we’ve been oblivious to the real danger all along: irony.
“Consuming or saying something ironically is ensuring your own destruction. Eventually, you will forget it is ironic, and you will be the person you were making fun of in the first place. And by then, no one will care because everyone will have left you,” Pollan says.
Pollan began his studies after observing troubling behavior in his students. “One day, I went to class, and someone was talking shit about the tv show Riverdale, and, of course, we’ve all done that. But then, I saw her eating lunch and trying to hide her phone, and for good reason, she was looking at a picture of Cole Sprouse clear as day.” Taken by surprise, Pollan began monitoring his students and was appalled by his findings.
The study was chilling and absolutely conclusive; it was one of the first times a study was so accurate and devoid of human error. “If it wasn’t so upsetting, I would be proud of it,” said Pollan.
It’s endemic across age, race, gender, and sexuality. You play the Beastie Boys’ “An Open Letter to NYC,” saying, “this is better than that stupid Hamilton shit” to annoy your New Yorker roommate, and then suddenly, you are delivering a tear-soaked MCA shrine to Ad-Rock’s home address.
One day, you are making fun of Meghan Trainor, and the next, you tell everyone that you are their mother; they listen to you.
You don’t know how it happened; all you know is that it did.
Pollan explained, “ironic behavior is more dangerous, more addictive than crystal-clear pure blue methamphetamine, pushing kids off of swings, and swindling LARPers. Sure, those are all thrilling and peak fun, but they don’t even compare. We’ve never seen a hazard of this magnitude before. It makes me sick. If the future is post-ironic, we should burn it down before we build it.
But there is still hope. All you have to do is DARE to just say no and practice trickle-down sincerity. The newest slogan of the anti-irony campaign? Don’t do it ironically unless you are ready to do it chronically.