A recent Times Style section story, with the tricky title “Irony Is Dead. Again. Yeah, Right.” wonders if America is entering a new era of authenticity. Joan Didion, ironic enthusiast and queen of chic prose, says that “hope is in” and “innocence is prized.”

But the Times points out that this would not be the first reported death of irony—its most recent other massacre occurred directly after 9/11, when a shell-shocked nation couldn’t even think of wearing their $20 WTC t-shirts to nightclubs. (Actually, that is still more offensive than ironic. Where did I even think of that?)

Well, clearly the Times has not read my pro-Sarah Palin piece or anti-Prop 8 article. But the so stylistic paper may have a point. With a “green” nightclub currently popular in Paris, the MisShapes part of some anti-poverty campaign, and art spaces cheering for an American president(-elect), is irony over? I sure hope not.

Irony is intricately tied to the post-modern movement, which has also recently been declared dead, to be replaced by post-humanism (@ll c0mpu+er$, all the time) or post-post-modernism, which is sort of the antidote to irony.

Harmony Korine’s ’90s film Gummo was a beautiful achievement of post-modern irony—a veritable hodge-podge of low-culture reference points produced by high-end artists. His 2008 film then, Mr. Lonely, may very well have celebrated the death of post-modernism: a film about contemporary impersonators (get it? all dressed up in pop culture reference to the point of no identity?) who eventually shed their costumes when reality sets in. An odd monologue about embracing life authentically is unseemly in a Korine film, but perhaps it is more in line with current zeitgeist.

The problem, perhaps, that irony faces is that authentic issues are less laughable now. A cowboy president and a nation of Wal-Mart enthusiasts are easy for New York City residents to mock by ironically embracing, but progressive, green-thinking innovative companies? Edgy celebrities? The first black president? Less easy to make fun of.

The days of American Psycho-style hyper-commercialism are being replaced by recession chatter: tastamakers like New York magazine are declaring recognizable, high-end accessories like Birkin Bags “embarrassing” and witty gossip-mongers like Gawker placed Entourage in a montage of things that have died with the economic downturn.

As the Times points out, irony will never really die. Satire, the most basic form of stylistic irony, will be around whether we’re mocking faux-progressive ideals like “the end of race,” or no-progressive ideals, like, well, racism. But the golden age of disaffection may have had its heyday.

But still, America is getting more serious in the wake of an era that was, perhaps, so hopeless that it could only be treated ironically. As the country wakes up, is irony at least going to sleep? Or am I just a product of my times: suddenly, inexplicably authentic? NYU: help! Is disaffection passé?

Photo by Flickr user Mat Honan used under the Creative Commons