Can You Pass This Pop Quiz On Irony?
By Mat Devine
Everyone knows the American intellect is in a state of free fall, but watching Mad Men this afternoon made it painfully clear just how far and how fast we’ve plummeted. I never thought I’d be nostalgic for an age where men belittled their wives and beat their children in public. Say what you will about the 1960s, at least those homophobes read books, played the piano, and could construct a sentence. Today, people, I’m sorry to say, we are goddamned idiots.
I don’t know how we’ve become so tolerant of things like bad grammar and vocabulary rape. Maybe it was the Nazi nuns who taught at my strict school, but whenever I hear people butcher the English language, the effect is physical; I get clammy and anxious, like I’m sitting in one of those self-serve blood pressure machines at Walgreens.
For example, many of us are unclear on the definition of irony. Like most words, we throw it around casually, the way Koko the gorilla might fling feces around her cage. It bemuses me. And for those of us unclear on the definition of “bemuses,” I guess what I mean is, it makes me want to drink a glass of hair relaxer and/or possibly papercut my dick.
When someone’s anecdote begins, “It was so ironic…,” I wince; because what follows is almost never “ironic,” but instead more accurately categorized as “vaguely remarkable” or at best, “coincidental.”
As a patriot, I have a hard time sitting idly by as this great nation hemorrhages brain cells and slips warmly into a collective Snooki-fied coma bath. That’s why I’ve created this simple quiz.
Hopefully by accepting the challenge and passing it on to a friend you’ll help to stem the vulgar misuse of a simple term that oddly mystifies us.
Answer:
A. If it’s IRONY
B. If it’s COINCIDENCE
C. If it’s SOMETHING THAT A HOMELESS GUY ON THE BEACH JUST SAID TO MY FRIEND MISSY
1. Despite their fight against conformity and celebration of individuality, all punk rockers pretty much dress the same.
2. Your girlfriend just paid $500 for her hair to intentionally look like she slept in the Joshua Tree State Park for 2 months.
3. Your horoscope said you’d meet a handsome man today, and you did!
4. There’s a hair salon in the deep ghetto called Beverly Hills Beauty.
5. You got dumped on Valentine’s Day.
6. Your French roommate makes French toast. It tastes like shit.
7. The most psychotic girl you have ever known just got her Masters in Psychology and will soon become a licensed therapist.
8. Pedophile priests.
9. Your girlfriend is using her Equinox Health Club membership card to cut lines of cocaine on your coffee table.
10. Your friend and you are wearing the same Anna Sui dress on the same night!
11. Walking down the street, you were just talking about Zumba class, and then you ran right into your Zumba instructor!
12. Red is your favorite color, and the napkins on your date were red!
13. A man incorrectly believes he is having a heart attack. He sits down on the curb and calls 911. The ambulance arrives and runs over him. He dies.
14. You are a top-tier fashion model and your best features are the result of inbreeding.
15. A Star of David tattoo.
16. I have the mind of a Mohawk cannibal. I’m immune to the wind and your tight butt makes my balls ache.
ANSWERS
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BELOW
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FOLLOWING
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LINE!
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Answer Key: 1. A. 2. A. (plus Brooklyn bonus badge!) 3. B. 4. A. 5. A. 6. First part B, but overall A. 7. A. 8. A. 9. A. (plus Lohan power up!)10. B. 11. B. 12. B. 13. A. 14. A. 15. A. context: Jewish faith forbids tattoos.16. C.