The meat of this article is its last paragraph or two, and particularly in the observation that modern "woke" culture is humorless and incapable of parsing sarc

The meat of this article is its last paragraph or two, and particularly in the observation that modern "woke" culture is humorless and incapable of parsing sarcasm. I disagree however that this is peculiar to "woke" culture. Literalism and humorlessness are everywhere. We are living in a profoundly conservative era whose deep conservatism is masked by the triumph of certain select socially liberal causes such as partial drug decriminalization and LGBT rights. IMHO those few specific victories are on the inertia of a previous era. I am referring to the 60s through the 90s, the era that created modern rock and roll, techno, hip hop, burning man, and rave culture, some of which is now decidedly retro. Very little culture of this sort -- or of any sort really -- is being created today. Ours is an era of sterility. You can really see this in how the "alt-right" was able to look hip and edgy with nothing more than shitty memes and ideas like "alternate reality gaming" appropriated from old 90s issues of Mondo 2000. Everything else is so damn sterile and dull that the sorts of aesthetically tone deaf CHUDs that hang out on 4chan /pol could sort of look cool. It doesn't take much color to grab attention in a monochromatic world. I'm not really that pessimistic. This stuff is very cyclic and the pendulum will swing yet again. I'm thinking COVID marks the end of the post-9/11 era and things will start getting interesting again in the mid-2020s. COVID has also crashed the Trump train, which is significant.