Upending the logical order.
If you have spent any time on social media, you understand that Gen Z governs the internet: in the 2020s, Gen Z is both judge, jury, and executioner when it concerns trend virality. While Millennials and Gen X are inseparable from the digital medium, Gen Z is the first generation where parents are secondary to the internet in influence - it's their virtual holiday home.
For aspiring entrepreneurs, marketing can seem like a fool's errand when attempts at fastening an audience are met with indifference. Innumerable articles claim to teach the secret formula of engaging the younger generation - 'This is why your attempts at meming fail'; desperate rants fill message boards, all mouthing the same words - 'Why can't I connect with my kids?'. There's a sense of resentment amongst boomers regarding the teenage psyche, which is far from new: rebellion is canon to adolescent identity. The difference now is that the rebellion has manifested itself in the form of gatekept conversation: inside jokes encrypted with dense layers of satire corrupting every corner of the internet. It's every psychoanalyst's dream: a reemergence of Dadaist - believing in \
- rhetoric adopted as a virtual barricade to section off Gen Z from prying eyes.
Emerging in parallel growth to this generational segregation is a new approach to music specifically catered to Gen Z. It's a proven phenomenon that music mirrors generational paradigm shifts: as an artform, music is inherently progressive and will always be a decade ahead of the norm - especially when it involves teenage angst. Analyzing burgeoning genres, therefore, is not only a reflection of the present but also the future; and that's exactly how I would characterize my case study for this article, BBY Goyard's Loreseeker, which has epitomized a fresh wave of 'post-ironic' music.
Post-Irony: Where Meaning Is Obsolete
'This isn't just lore, it's a lifestyle' - DJ Smokey, on the 5th track of Loreseeker, Kpins and Needles. The concept of post-ironic music follows a similar maxim: this isn't just ironic, it's a new genre entirely. Post-irony is Gen Z's weapon of choice against the overly-analytical ethos of older generations, and its materialization in music is only part of a larger picture of parental mutiny. To aid in explaining post-irony, I will use hyperpop - which Loreseeker brandishes often - as an example through the expression of an 'irony ladder'.
Ground zero is sincerity: the baseline reality that irony is based on. For hyperpop, this standard would be the commercial pop that pervaded the charts of the early 2010s (eg. Lady Gaga, Carly Rae Jepson). At this point, there is no veiled implication, only plain truth. Step up a rung of the 'irony ladder' and you've reached irony as we know it: in this case, the subversion of pop's value by overexaggerating attributes to comment on its banality (eg. early PCMusic). Irony is merely for the moral - or the memes: not for the music's merit. However, step up another rung and you've reached meta-irony: capitalizing off of irony through self-awareness (eg. Sophie, Dariacore). In meta-irony, the music is satirical but authentic: irony is a tool, not its identity.
Loreseeker is the final evolution: the development of an entirely new baseline by coalescing previous forms of irony that have lost meaning; it's falling off the ladder, and beginning a consequent revolution of the irony cycle. For post-irony, there is no ambiguity: it's as transparent as a sheet of cellophane - this is where Millennial frustration stems from, as attempting to read between the lines is grasping at thin air.
Loreseeker is a hilarious album, but its wit is contingent on an awareness of post-irony. It is meme culture manifested in musical innovation, but connecting the dots is simultaneously meaningless. Indeed, the lore behind Loreseeker is extensive, and the references are derived from a multitude of sources. But you could spend thousands of words analyzing every allusion, every piece of influence - even the glaring QOTSA appropriation - and achieve nothing. They are simply red herrings: measuring virtues through a value-added method only leads to dead ends; Loreseeker is better perceived from a gestalt vantage point, where each organ performs an essential function but is useless on its own. In an age of structuralist critical thought, the notion of a gestalt approach can be alien and unnerving - especially to those who have institutionalized the process. In this way, BBY Goyard and producer DJ Smokey are comedic geniuses because the joke is there, you just don't know why you're laughing - the essence of Gen Z humor. As the opening track warns, 'Loreseeker - you can't even comprehend it'.
Post-irony is the cornerstone of Gen Z: a one-way hash that older generations try in vain to decrypt. It's a language that teenagers have devised to covertly communicate with each other while ostracizing those who crave access. It's why seemingly innocuous and random videos go viral while substantive videos achieve little recognition. BBY Goyard has merely taken this approach and applied it to music - to great success, as it feels exclusive to Gen Z and therefore defiant. Hence, Loreseeker serves as a post-ironic manual: deliberately pulling at the listener's heartstrings only to reveal a blank wall.
Ratings and Links
BBY Goyard - Loreseeker
Thank you for reading!