Don’t you think?

The most ironic thing about this video is, of course, that a person appears to be learning English by singing a song which uses its title word incorrectly throughout the lyrics. That the title is “ironic” only heightens the irony. I like the use of verbal irony and don’t terribly mind that the term gets misused all the time. Since it is mostly misused by hipsters who feign superior knowledge, I appreciate the irony in their misappropriation of the term. Dramatic irony is not something I go for quite so much. I’m not sure why this is, but ever since I was a little kid, I did not find comedies which relied on the premise that one character is ignorant of what we as an audience know is therefore a reasonable target for humor. I just don’t think it is funny, and I know that this is my issue, not the legion of comedy writers which have made successful careers doing this sort of thing. You might imagine, for instance, a guy wrecking his car and coming home to a boy’s birthday celebration with a Cars theme and he can’t say anything. Ha ha, very funny. Or just plain uncomfortable. I would hate to be in that situation and I feel for anyone who might be. It would cause a person to miss the best things in life. For instance, my last birthday, which was just a few days ago. There were lots of well wishes and a few presents. The best gift of all, though, was a gift of song. Abigail and Louisa presented me with a delicious chocolate cake and their smiling sweet faces signing “Happy Birthday.” Abigail has a beautiful voice, and Louisa has just started to get comfortable singing. It was amazing to see the joy in their eyes in making this simply profound gesture to me. If I had some plot-twisting dramatic event rolling around in my head, I would have missed it completely. The fact that I did not, that I could enjoy that moment as much as they did, was an un-ironic gift too.