Festival of Driving: who’s in charge of irony around here?

Here at the ALLDERBLOB we remain acutely conscious of the fact that Irony is Dead.

As our breaking news competitors at TIME magazine and car advertiser put it, “Are you looking for something to take seriously? Begin with evil.”

Of course, the irony is they thought they were talking about the evil of the attackers from “outside:” Al Qaeda, 9/11, etc. When in fact the evil was at the heart: Al Greenspan, 7/11 and so forth.

But maybe that’s more like tragedy. The fact is, mainstream media (defined as “car advertisers” in our blinkered universe) our blinkered universe: hampered by irony have made no attempt to look closely at the facts they profess such sincere concern with.

So the death of irony has been “greatly exaggerated,” after all. What we’re looking forward to is the death of tragedy.

Tragic: the actor has a fate he knows not, but all around him know it all too well.

Ironic: the actor acts his lines despite his knowledge of the dire outcome.

Marx Marx who? –ed. is said to have summed this up as “history repeats itself: first as tragedy, then as farce” [More pithy Marx quotes found here –Ed.].

Last year at this time, for example, we wrote about the so-called “driven to quit” campaign run by the Canadian Cancer Society.

Arr, them as what wanted smokers to quit the cancer sticks and suck on something more sophisticated: the tailpipe of an automobile.

It wasn’t funny the first time.

It’s still not funny.

Singer cartoon: suicide freedom

One Response to “Festival of Driving: who’s in charge of irony around here?”

  1.  

    Our colleagues in the International Bicycle Conspiracy have apprised us of the fact that the sponsors of the "Riven with Guilt" campaign [check spelling before publication plz --ed.] are in fact "McNeil Consumer Healthcare:" a drug company (owned by Johnson & Johnson, the sponsors of last year's contest) that distributes pharmaceuticals such as Nicoderm and Nicorette.

    Tragedy meets farce in this ad:

    where tragedy meets farce: stop smoking aid enlists public transit

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