The history of irony

I was in high school in the 1980s. I feel like that was around the time that irony overtook sincerity in western society. Let me explain.

Irony has probably always been around. On dictionary.com it shows the word as having ancient Latin and Greek origins and it seems to have had roughly the same meaning even back then. In more recent times, you could see heavy irony in Mad magazine issues frfom the 1950s or the Laugh-in tv show from the 1960s, to name just a few examples. Still, I feel like it was around when I was in high school in the late 1980s and college in the early 1990s that people really started basing their lives more around ironic interests to show how clever they are and how they "get it" rather than things they sincerely like and care about.

Let me give another example. I lived in the former-USSR in the early 2000s. One thing I loved about it was the almost total lack of irony in Russia and Ukraine at the time. The word irony exists in Russian, but the concept seemed entirely foreign in that part of the world at the time. For example, if a guy had a Scorpions poster up in his room, he sincerely thought the Scorpions were great and enjoyed their music. If an American guy of the same age at the same time had the same Scorpions poster, he probably deep down didn't really know himself if he actually liked the Scorpions or if he was subtly mocking their cheesy image and signaling how cool he was and how he "gets it" unlike anyone who might enjoy their music sincerely.

This is also why you see Boomers and GenXers falling for "copypasta" on social media more often than younger generations, who are conditioned from their earliest years to expect that any post online of more than a few sentences in length with good grammar and complete sentences is probably intended ironically and is mainly there to rope in lame sincere people and show how OP "gets it" more than them.

Anyway, thoughts?

I think the use of irony can be a sign of intelligence, but it can also be a sign of trying to come across as intelligent. As if you're above whatever is being discussed. I'd say probably in most non western cultures irony and to an extent sarcasm would be considered rude and childish. I can imagine russians not being impressed by it. 

Maybe people in western cultures feel so secure in their civilization that they can afford to not be completely straight about what they think, whereas in other cultures it's important to say what you mean and mean what you say. 

Irony and sarcasm have their place, but some people take it too far. I hate it when lefties overuse the word literally, as if there's some other way in which something was said or done. It's almost like they're trying to say "no really, I'm actually not being ironic this time".