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I like what ni'k had to say in those last two posts. A couple of things:
I don't think irony is necessarily bad; it can be used to make sincere observations and points. However, imo, most irony is used as a sort of a defense against the potential for believing sincerely in something and having it proven to be wrong foolish, in some sense. David Foster Wallace was greatly concerned with irony, and it's dangers.
Which leads to another point, which is the use of references in lieu of actually discussion. My theory on our use of references, and the amount of time people spend discussing what they consume (be it art, or whatever), is that we have this need to connect with people, but that connecting through actual discussion is hard (some things are just hard to talk about) and again it leaves you exposed to looking silly. But we still have the need to connect. So we end up saying "I like this" which translates to "this articulates some feeling or belief that I have" and we're implicitly asking "do you like this?" which translates to "do you share this feeling or belief", and if so, there's some connection without all the messiness of trying to articulate something difficult.
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