When irony becomes incoherence

I've got to stop reading things.

Dear Barack:

I know it's kind of lame to break up with you on Valentine's Day. And on the Internet to boot. But it's also kind of ironic. And that's what I need to tell you. As an ironic, contrarian, so-hip-it-hurts Gen X-er, I just can't love you anymore. I can't like you because … because, well, everyone else does.

Nobody has made this tired observation since I'm going to guess 1994.

And suddenly supporting you just seems soooo last week.

Oh, we're still saying that, huh.

Last week, my hip friends were all thronging stadiums and manning phone banks for you. Now they're all blogging against you and downing water and Tylenol like they've just done 12 Obama shooters in 20 minutes and then barfed in the cloakroom.

Are they really? Have young supporters suddenly started leaving the Obama campaign in droves because he became...uh...popular? The answer, of course, is no.

And yet, here we are.

I don't know when we started to feel weird supporting you, but: My friend Hanna thinks it started with that "Yes We Can," video.

To be fair, that video is pretty stupid.

But more to the point, this entire empty-headed "humor" piece was conceived because Slate writer Dahlia Lithwick were talking about I don't even care. Because our Slate writer in question has absolutely zero perspective and even less insight (caring about no one and nothing but yourself will do that to you), she tries to extrapolate some kind of broad social blah blah out of her own blah blah blah blah. Problem is she's an incredibly vapid person who--by trying to extend her own navel-gazing blather onto us--makes us all look as vapid as she is. And I have a problem with that. I mean, I'm sorry, but I'm trying to be pretty reasonable here, I think.

Feeling inspired is soooo early-February.

And considering, I think I'm in line for a fucking medal, the way I'm keeping my cool here.

Or maybe it started when everyone began madly posting last week about how you are not the Messiah. And that got me thinking. Then, when commentators started accusing me of being a venomous drone in a "cult of personality," I just needed to get out. I mean cults are soooo 1970s. And cults of personality? So totally first century.

From this point on, I am pledging that I will never again use the word "so" on this blog. And I will certainly never italicize it and elongate it with multiple o's. You can hold me to that.

Cult or no cult, this week I just started getting really confused about you. I mean, when people start to say that your strengths are actually weaknesses? That just makes sense, if you really think about it. I mean, what's the point of being such an inspirational speaker if all you can do is give inspirational speeches?

So we're perpetuating that myth, are we. Well done, media.

Do better, Barack. I mean, do worse!

What? I mean, I shouldn't hold her responsible for this opinion, since I know she's trying to be "funny" or something. But what does this even mean?

So I've been thinking a lot about our time together, Barack. Supporting you wholeheartedly was the best damn 14 days of my life. I liked you before liking you was cool. But now it is, so it's not. Know what I mean? At least now I can go back to being flip and cynical and edgy again. I bet you wish you could, too.

You know who the target of this article is? Remember that episode of the Simpsons where Homer starts traveling cross-country taking cannonballs in the gut with Hullabalooza, and there are those two teenagers in the crowd and one of them says something like, "oh great, here comes that cannonball guy, he's cool," and the other one goes, "are you being sarcastic?" and then the first kid waits a beat and then looks at his feet and says "I don't even know anymore." Remember those kids? Those are the people Dahlia is writing about. A stereotype that was kind of amusing but already getting kind of old when the Simpsons lampooned it back in 1996.

Does it sting, America?

But don't be sad! My friend has a Web site: IlikedObamabeforehewascool.com. It's not much of a site, but it sure is funny.

I don't get it.

As for me, well, I just can't be comfortable liking you now that liking you is like liking an iPhone. Maybe if you can be more of a jerk or play hard to get or something? Maybe you could uninspire some of your fans? Maybe then I could believe in you again. I'm hopeful. Or at least just hopeful enough to still be cool.

Me, I'm going to roll up my sleeves and start working for the Dennis Kucinich 2012 campaign. Edgy, no? And if things start really truly going south for you, I want you to know that you can count on my future fleeting and conditional support in the months and years ahead. Yes, you can.

What the hell is this? Preemptive satire? Because the thing is, when the people you're making fun of (hipsters abandoning Obama's campaign because he's too populholy shit it's so stupid I can't even finish typing it) don't exist, it's not quite as funny. What happened here was, you came up against a deadline of some kind, or decided you hadn't had a byline in a while, so you let your fingers type X00 words of stale jokes whose premise depends on the very opposite of the truth and thought you'd be able to hide your awfulness behind some hackneyed "LOL NOT REALLY" defense.

Please don't ever do that again.