And isn't it ironic...don't ya think?

Ten years ago, I had a mustache...

Here I am, sitting on the toilet in 2005, with a mustache, drenched in sweat.

I was 21 years old, staring down the rapidly impending arrival of 22, and I finally was able to grow the mustache that I had been trying to grow since around the age of 12.  I find I was not alone in this - lots of barely pubescent young men walk around with mocha-colored smudges gracing their top lips, feeling masculine and grown up, when really they just look like they drank chocolate milk and need to mop up the mess.

I was self-conscious of my mustache, and it was short lived.  There exists very little photographic evidence of it today.  I was self-conscious of it because I was informed on many occasions that a solitary mustache made anyone under the age of 50 look like a rapist, child molester, etc.  There were no wholesome and praiseworthy young men who wore them.  In the 90's and a few decades before, a mustachioed man likely would have been told he looked like a porn star.  Deep inside, this would be a comparison most men would likely have been proud of.  It is edifying to be told you have the facial hair of a sex industry worker.

But not a rapist.  

So I shaved it off.  I don't miss it, but sometimes I think about it.  The thing I've realized is that I could totally have a mustache today, and it would be okay.  It could be accepted because it would be an ironic statement on mustaches.  It has become possible in the last decade (probably far longer on the coasts, but this is the heartland) to engage in all sorts of previously unacceptable social practices simply out of irony.

"We eat what we like..."

I grew up seeing a series of commercials for Apple Jacks cereal that always involved totally hip kids and clueless adults.  The kids would be eating the cereal and the adults would say, "But it doesn't even taste like apples!  What the fuck?"  And the kids would laugh and say, "We eat what we like!"  It was iconoclastic and rebellious to eat Apple Jacks.  It appealed to every child's inherent desire to be cool and trend-setting.  It was the same with Dr. Pepper.  Everyone drank Pepsi or Coke.  But rebels with a disdain for the social order drank Dr. Pepper.  There was real gravitas to proclaiming yourself a "Pepper."  And Apple Jacks were like the leather jacket and switchblade knife of breakfast cereals.

In 1995, pouring Dr. Pepper over a bowl of Apple Jacks in mixed company and eating them under my smudge of a mustache would have certainly gotten me laid.  If only I hadn't been 12 years old.  Youth is truly wasted on the young.

Irony has taken the edge out of everything.  I suppose it's edgy to wear slotted shades and slap bracelets today, inasmuch as they are uncommonly seen.  It would be a fashion statement, at least, but the irony of the action would more likely garner you a "right on!" than a "get a haircut, hippie!"  And wearing a mustache, even in this renaissance of facial hair, would be taken as an ironic statement on how wearing one ten years ago would have gotten you branded a rapist.  

Wearing a "wife-beater" t-shirt would have been a rebellious act in 1998 - today it would be hilarious, and people would smile at you.  The very name "wife-beater" is so outrageous that even to mention such a shirt today would be ironic.  Irony has taken the teeth out of everything, and has robbed us of our fundamental right to express ourselves in a sincere and honest way.

In 1975, it was rebellious to admit to liking KISS; in 1977, it was cool; in 1979, it was lame; in 1988, it was ridiculous; in 1997, it was cool; and in 2015 it's ironic.  Ditto for most of the popular music of the 80's.  One can sincerely in their true heart have a deep-seated love of Duran Duran or Men at Work, but it is impossible to express it in today's climate as people would assume you were being ironic.  They would laugh and say, "Man, I totally get that.  I love them, too!"  And you may all wear vintage M.a.W. t-shirts and play their music on vinyl and dance and sing along and, outwardly to the untrained eye, appear to be having a legitimately good time.  And maybe you all are, but would it even be possible to know?  Are you enjoying it because it's honestly good, or simply because it's so ridiculous that it has suddenly become hilarious?  

Most people under the age of 40 understand that drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon or Miller High Life is a hilariously ironic statement, and many a bonfire has been warmly passed deep within this ironic glow.  I remember the first time a local liquor store started carrying PBR in glass bottles.  That made it even more ironic - can you imagine drinking this swill out of a glass bottle, as if it were of the elevated quality of say, Red Stripe?  Drinking a 40oz of Colt45 out of a paper sack was the ultimate ironic statement; unfortunately, it also acted as a gateway to alcoholism, which is lame.  It was a delicate balancing act.  Certain beers were so lame and pedestrian that they were outside the protective bubble of hipster irony.  Pretty much anything with Lite in the title was just lame, as was Corona - widely accepted as the go-to "exotic" beer for completely lame people.  However, I would not be at all surprised to find that these beers, found inexcusably lame just five short years ago, have been enthusiastically (and ironically) embraced by the new hipster elite.

It is possible if you let it for this "ironic paranoia" to creep into every aspect of your life, even the totally mundane ones.  When confronted with pepperoni, veggie, or beef as my three options for a slice of lunchtime pizza, my stomach said pepperoni, but my mind actually thought I should get beef - that'd be hilarious!  I didn't, however - my stomach won, as it always does.  But the mere fact that I considered purchasing a slice of pizza with a totally lame topping simply for the ironic value of it was alarming - especially since I ate lunch alone in my car.  If an irony tree falls in a forest, and there is nobody around to hear it, does it still rawk?  Would it still be on like Donkey Kong?  

I had made the honest choice for lunch, but as I sat in my car eating my slice I scrolled through my iPod looking for desirable tunage, and settled on Quiet Riot's "Cum on Feel the Noize," which I was actually so into in that moment in my life that I played it on repeat.  Into the second chorus of the third repeat of the track, I had a mini existential meltdown.  "Why am I doing this?" I spoke to my steering wheel through a mouthful of pizza.  I have always loved "Cum on Feel the Noize" but my ironic paranoia suddenly cast my emotional motivations in doubt.

I am spiraling, and I fear my ironic rock bottom is still very far away.  How much more of this emotional turmoil will I have to endure before pop culture returns to an age of sincerity?  WILL it ever return to an age of sincerity?  Sincerity itself is probably the most ironic gesture of all.  Will I eventually reach that age of pop culture oblivion where I simply stop trying to keep up, and finally allow myself to exist safely and peacefully outside its fickle embrace?  

(As I type this I am overwhelmed by the alarming possibility that this very topic may only be a figment of my imagination (and my generation) and that those ten years younger than I may find all of this completely impossible to relate to.  Suddenly, I wonder if I'm getting enough fiber in my diet...)  

Some companies have embraced the irony and are using it to their advantage.  I recently bought a stick of classic Old Spice (the translucent blue stick) because it was recommended to me as part of my ongoing fight against prolific underarm sweating.  On the label, it said, "If your grandfather hadn't worn it, you wouldn't exist."  Old Spice was lame, which made it ironic, which made it cool.  Popular deodorants like Axe and (especially) Bod Man are totally trendy, which makes them lame.  Old Spice is capitalizing on its newly-acquired ironic capital, which is lame and will likely hurt its popularity in the long run.  By the time that happens Axe and Bod Man will be so uncool that it will make them ironic, hence totally cool.

Even my underarms are not safe.  Like so many things, I suppose the best solution is to not think about it too much.  But I am prone to thinking about stuff like this a lot all the time, so that's not going to be easy.  But necessary.  I've always liked to think that I was pretty honest, at least with myself.  I refuse to believe that I would be willing to allow myself to embrace something simply for ironic value.  I am bearded today, but it's more from laziness than social statement.  I enjoy Rockstar energy drinks, but only for their caffeine and low calorie content.  Rockstar energy drinks are lame.  Enjoying them could be construed as an ironic gesture.  But I make this distinction - if I would choose to drink one when absolutely nobody would see me doing it, that's an honest action.  If I am with a group of people, or in a public place, and the simple act of people witnessing my action would be enough to influence my choices, that is truly living ironically.  Which would be a completely lame way to live, which would make it ironic.

But I would never allow myself to be controlled in that way, right?  I mean, I sort of do - at least in my head, but I never liked Dr. Pepper.  I haven't had one in years, and if it were the only soft drink available I would switch to water.  Because I am free.  Commercials reassure me it's true.  I am an American.  I am a target market.  I am beautiful.

I eat what I like!