Is It Not Ironic?

A brief, well-researched defense of Alanis Morissette’s hit single that came out the year before Space Jam.

Irony is defined by the reputable Urban Dictionary as:

Of, resembling, relating to, or tasting much like iron.

But, dear reader, did you know it also has another, dumber definition? This definition, like a bag filled of Skittles and William Jonathan Drayton Jr.’s, comes in many flavors. But allow me to define it for you, so you don’t have to use the dictionary that is built into your computer or read any of the myriad websites that will detail the myriad ways to argue about said definition.

Irony is the exact opposite thing as you’d expect.

Thinking of an example is actually rather simple. Let’s take the present moment: imagine you were reading this article, and then—whoa—this article started reading you.

Would you expect that? If you said, “Haha heck nah, that’s more like the exact opposite as the thing I would expect!” then that, my friends, is irony.

With this newly memorized definition fresh in our noggins (French for “toboggan”), let’s dive right into one of the most ridiculed misinterpreters of “irony.” Atlanta Morecasette’s 1995 top-40, pop-rock, hit-smash, other-compounds song “Isn’t it Ironic” (Sometimes popularized as “Doncha Thing”).

Wikipedia divulges many riveting facts about the aforementioned opus, including, “it starts with the sequence of Emaj7–F♯6–Emaj7–F♯6, before changing to F♯–Badd2–F♯–G♯m7 in the chorus” (I mean gosh, wow), but perhaps the most important part is how many people think every lyrical example she uses isn’t ironic (which, if true, would be sort of an ironic masterstroke, if you think about it).

But, like the popular CGI iguana voiced by Johnny Depp, they are Rongo.

A guy that wins the lottery when he’s 98 and dies isn’t ironic. Grandpeople are quite good at that kind of thing. But what percentage of people have died the day after winning the lottery? Well, I asked Jeeves. 0%. Dogpile it if you don’t believe me, it’s a real true fact.That means 100% of people survive winning the lottery, until this sucker kicked bucket and ruined the statistic for everyone.

Rain on your wedding day? Yeah, that is irony. Because you spent at least a year planning every detail of your wedding so it would be perfect. You yelled at your family. You yelled at your florist. You yelled at the guy that sold the jetpacks to the bridesmaids. And guess what? It’s not perfect, because you forgot to yell at ol’ Momma Nature.

Your family looks miserable—your granddad didn’t even come (no one’s heard from him since he won the lottery). The rain has doused the now soggy flowers. Your bridesmaids were fried by the jetpacks’ exposed circuit boards. Go ahead and interrupt me if this is not exactly the opposite as you’d expected.

It’s like ten-thousand spoons when all you need is a knife.

Ten-thousand spoons? C’mon. Too many spoons.

Okay, picture this. After your miserable wedding, you joined a yoga studio so you could center your soul and bend into a spiritual pretzel or whatever. You just finished hot yoga. You’re in your Lulus. You’ve slipped in to your comfiest Uggs. You decide it’s time for a Yoplait Strawberry-Raspberry Greek Yogurt. (You get to lick the lid, it’s a new marketing thing they’re trying out.) But that lid can be a little finicky—so you just wanna wedge it open a bit before peeling it back. All you need is a knife.

You open the silverware drawer. Sudden as a shutter click and righteous as fire from heaven, a parade of spoons spits from the drawer. It kills you instantly, obviously, but the pitter-patter of spoons is heard for days.

This is the image Atlantis Morrissey created. But, now picture this: You were actually a dude the whole time. A dude in Lulus.

C’mon, obviously that’s the exact opposite of what you were expecting. That is irony.

Doncha Thing?