/lit/ - Literature

Society is trending away from unvarnished irony, into narcissistic faux-sincerity, as demonstrated by the "wholesome" reddit meme.
People are realising that they can appear more virtuous by feigning sincerity, but after being raised in the quagmire of irony, do not possess the capacity for truly sincere self-expression and thought.
So the "wholesome" meme came about, wherein the mere description of something as sincere and "wholesome" became an ironic meme in and of itself. By constantly ironically ascribing "wholesomeness" to things like Bob Ross and the like, people are attempting to ape what they believe sincere, unironic appreciation of the non-degenerate looks like.
Before irony was the norm, no-one had to specify what was "wholesome" or sincere, because it was inherently appreciated and valued, and insincerity was admonished.
People are now only capable of expressing ironic sincerity.
Another example of this is Reviewbrah. When he first started, people on the bodybuilding forums found him and dubbed him Reviewbrah, thus turning him into a meme. However, as well as the pokes at the silliness of sincerely reviewing junk food in a suit, there was an unironic, genuine appreciation of him, and they welcomed him into the community, as evidenced by him posting their.
Now take a look at the comment section of any of his videos. They are filled with redditors repeating the exact same faux-sincere praises of him being "wholesome", or a "god", etc. These are people recognising a sincere person, and trying to engage with him sincerely, but unable to without the ironic undercurrents, lest they feel ostracised from their fellow ironic "memers" who cannot fathom simply enjoying or praising something sincerely for its own sake, and not for the sake of appearing virtuous for social credit.
This is far worse than the pure irony which came before, which masked an underlying sincerity. Now, the "sincerity" masks an irony, with the true sincerity underneath lost.