Exploring the Concept of Sincere Irony
‘Life’s the biggest troll, but the joke is on us.
Yeah, the joke’s you showed up’
- Childish Gambino
Life as Video Game
My generation grew up immersed in video games. I spent a couple of years in my youth utterly consumed by World of Warcraft. I was a Horde Hunter named Slaughterman, roaming the realms with my pet dragon, Bobaloo, who I’d send ahead to vanquish foes.
When playing a video game, you inevitably identify with your character to some extent. This is why many games allow you to customize your avatar’s appearance. Some players recreate themselves, others go for something absurd or whimsical, and some just craft entirely new personas.
In a video game, you inhabit a character and embark on quests. You forge a connection. When your character dies, you feel the sting of loss. When they unearth a rare treasure, you share in their triumph. But at the end of the day, it’s still a game. No matter what happens, you can always turn it off and walk away.
Today, my generation often describes life using video game terminology. A random adventure becomes a “side quest.” Boring, uninteresting people are labeled NPCs (Non-player characters). Achieving something great means you’ve “leveled up.” These terms reveal how we have come to view life through the same lens as our games.
Sometimes, this perspective can have tragic consequences. Many child shooters have stated themselves that they were following a video-game-like “script.” Video games have desensitized them to violence, a point that holds some merit.
But there’s also a very positive element to seeing life as a game. It injects fun into the mundane. Ordinary tasks turn into “missions.” Every person you meet might be there to help you along a quest. And the way we come to know our identity can be likened to choosing an avatar.
Alan Watts championed a philosophy where he often referred to life as a game. To Watts, the essence of life was to “play,” engaging in it as if you were constantly dancing. He viewed life as a dance with Maya, the illusion of form. The goal was to understand that everything is an illusion, that nothing is ultimately “real,” yet to still immerse oneself fully and live life to the fullest. In this way, life is indeed a game to be played with joy and awareness.
Embracing Sincere Irony
Sincere irony is a mindset that embraces the “life is a game” mentality. You’ve chosen a character, and you should strive to play that character to the best of your ability. But don’t take it too seriously, because that only leads to unnecessary stress. Remember, it’s just a game. But you still want to win, don’t you?
This mentality is a paradoxical dance where we live life earnestly, yet with a wry smile. It’s about playing our roles to the fullest, with all the heart and sincerity we can muster, while knowing it might all be for nothing.
This philosophy championed by Watts is ingrained in the collective psyche of my generation, I believe. At our best, we tackle life’s absurdity with a mix of fervor and detachment. We acknowledge the game, strive for the win, and yet, we laugh at the sheer madness of it all. This mindset allows us to navigate the world with a balance of seriousness and humor, enriching our experience of existence and embracing the ultimate irony of life.
For life, in its grand cosmic joke, is the ultimate troll. We stumble into existence, like avatars logging into a game, and the punchline is simply that we’re here, thrust into the chaos and absurdity of it all. So let’s make the best of it without stressing too much. This is the wisdom you find in much art nowadays, like the Childish Gambino quote I used at the top.
While this concept might sound weird to older generations, I believe those currently in their 20’s understand this on an intuitive level. Because of video games, we are used to inhabiting a character that we only semi-identify with, while not going “all the way” with that identification. Through social media, we have all done a lot of this as well. We’ve inhabited different characters under different screen names on different platforms. Who I was in World of Warcraft, who I was on Twitter in High School, who I am on LinkedIn, who I am on Instagram; these are all different people.
Take the popularity of music festivals as another example. You can maintain a typical 9–5 work life and then spend a long weekend wearing extravagant costumes and becoming some sort of mythical creation of your own making, far away from who you are in everyday life. For a while, you inhabit a new identity. Some might see this as escapism, but when done with intention, it’s more about trying out new versions of yourself for fun.
The Quest for Identity
Today we live in an age where we are all trying to find new identities, both individually and as a collective. The old grand narratives of religion and state authority are all but gone. The power of the story of capitalism and our role in it has greatly diminished as well as the reality of economic inequality makes itself more known everyday. So we have no religion, no “duty” to our country, no sense of economic purpose: where do we go from here?
No matter where we go, I believe sincere irony is the key ingredient to help us get there.
Currently, there are numerous resurgences of nationalism, fundamentalism, and traditional values, a trend known as “trad.” Simultaneously, there is an infinite number of sub-communities where people form their identities based on their roles in the modern world, such as digital nomads, eco-warriors, tech enthusiasts, social justice activists, minimalists, and countless other niche groups. Moreover, a growing number of individuals derive their identities from their sexuality or unique neurodivergence.
As the modern world becomes increasingly more fragmented and complex, this is an understandable reaction. People are desperately trying to forge a sense of identity and self-understanding in a world that no longer provides clear paths for this.
In our search for a new identity, or in reviving an old one, we will likely experiment with many different personas before finding the perfect fit. The ability to semi-identify with these identities — sincerely enough to experience them and ironically enough to avoid getting “lost in the sauce,” as the current phrase goes — will ensure continued progress toward creating a new sense of self without becoming stuck along the way.
Basically, sincere irony allows us to fully engage with life and its challenges, embracing our roles with earnestness and dedication, while also maintaining a sense of detachment and humor to avoid unnecessary stress and rigidity. This mindset helps us navigate the complexities of modern existence, where old grand narratives have faded and new identities are constantly being explored, ensuring we don’t get overwhelmed or lost in the process.
This mindset of sincere irony is one of the main components of what has been termed Metamodernism. Metamodernism is the proposed next stage in humanity’s story. It encompasses culture and philosophy, academia and the arts, and everything in between. There is much debate over this term and what it exactly means, but I believe that the core element of sincere irony is what is most important about it for the psychological development of our society.
If life is a video game, then this is our cheat code.
