Situational irony: The opposite of what you think - Christopher Warner

2,530,050 views ・ 2012-12-13

TED-Ed


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

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Translator: Andrea McDonough Reviewer: Bedirhan Cinar
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Picture this:
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your friend and you are watching a sitcom
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and a sassy sidekick walks into a room,
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carrying a four-tiered wedding cake.
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He trips,
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falls,
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and face-plants into the cake.
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Your friend doubles over with laughter and says,
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"It's so ridiculous! So ironic!"
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Well, quick, what do you do?
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Do you laugh along with the laugh track
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and let this grievous misinterpretation of irony go?
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Or, do you throw caution to the wind
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and explain the true meaning of irony?
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If you're me, you choose the latter.
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Unfortunately, irony has been completely misunderstood.
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We tend to throw out that term
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whenever we see something funny or coincidental.
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And while many examples of true irony can be funny,
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that is not the driving factor of being ironic.
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A situation is only ironic if what happens
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is the exact opposite of what was expected.
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If you expect A, but get B,
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then you have irony.
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Let's take the slap-stick cake situation as an example.
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When someone walks in precariously balancing something
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that shouldn't be carried alone,
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trips, falls, and makes a mess,
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it is funny, but it's not ironic.
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In fact, you probably expect someone
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who is single-handedly carrying a huge cake to trip.
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When he does, reality aligns with expectations,
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and so that is not irony.
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But what if the sassy sidekick walked in wearing a gold medal
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that he'd won at the cake walking event
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at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996?
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What if that sidekick was a professional cake carrier?
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Then, maybe there would have been a reasonable expectation
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that he would have been more skilled
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when carrying a ridiculously large cake.
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Then, when that reasonable expectation was not met by the tripping sidekick,
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irony would have been exemplified.
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Another example.
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A senior citizen texting and blogging.
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The common and reasonable expectation
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of more mature men and women
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is that they don't like or know technology,
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that they have a hard time turning on a computer,
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or that they have the old brick cell phones from the 1980s.
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One should not expect them to be connected,
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high-tech,
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or savvy enough to text
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or to be blogging,
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which must seem like some sort of newfangled thing
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that "back in my day," they never had.
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So when Granny pulls out her smart phone
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to post pictures of her dentures
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or her grandkids,
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irony ensues.
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Reasonable expectations of the situation are not met.
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That is irony.
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So while the cake dropper might not be ironic,
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there are all kinds of situations in life that are.
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Go out, and find those true examples of irony.
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