When Gen Z hearthrob/inadvertent mouthpiece Timothée Chalamet stood up at the SAG Awards a few weeks and declared, sincerely and earnestly, that he “wanted to be one of the greats,” it got us thinking. There’s nothing wrong with the statement, of course — it was just a display of the kind of ripe genuineness and eagerness (not even arrogance, he didn’t say he was one of the greats) that’s not so common in culture right now. What was it about the moment that put us on edge? Was it just because, as two Australians, we’ve been socialised to think that ambition and earnestness are a nauseating cocktail to be thrown right back up? Or was it because, as two internet natives, sincerity is a foreign language?

In a world where literally every human emotion can be turned into a joke by putting “tfw” in front of it, it’s easier than ever to sit at a coolly ironic distance from our own lives. We wanted to explore how internet-speak is filtering down into art, everyday social dynamics, and even politics. But even as we made genuine efforts to dissect the loss of sincerity, we found our tone drifting towards glibness and (ironically!!!) irony.

Have we reached the end of seriousness? And will we ever find a way back?

Divya: It’s been happening for a while, but I think it’s safe to say that irony is the default mode of comms on the internet now. The line between reality and sincerity is becoming more and more blurry. It makes me think of Morbius, that goddawful film that people started watching as a joke — and then Sony actually re-released the movie because they interpreted meme engagement as real demand. It flopped, obviously, because no one sincerely wanted to watch Morbius—they were just playing along.

Diana: Wow, I hadn’t heard about that. But you can see how it happened–like, in the attention-economy, all reactions have equal value, so how are you supposed to know whether you’re actually beloved, or beloved-to-be-hated. What I’m interested in, though, is less, like, engaging with culture ironically but more: ironic distance from our own lives. Specifically, the tendency to filter our experiences through the prism of memes or internet jokes. Lauren Michele Jackson gives a great example in her recent piece in the New Yorker on “the end of seriousness”. On the topic of her fear of flying, she writes:

As I brushed my teeth the day before the flight, my dread coalesced into the shape of a meme: Does anyone know if we have airline safety tomorrow?

Divya: I feel like irony can be such a shield from engaging with our own feelings, right?