THE META-IRONIC AS A PURE FORM OF J. DERRIDA’S DECONSTRUCTION IN THE CONTEMPORARY UKRAINIAN CULTURAL SPACE

Abstract

Abstract. This article examines the phenomenon of meta-irony through the lens of Jacques Derrida’s philosophy of deconstruction within the context of the contemporary Ukrainian cultural space. In recent years, a new phenomenon known as “meta-irony” has been increasingly discussed within the cultural sphere. It has gained particular popularity due to its unusual approach to meaning and irony as a form of deconstruction. Thus, this paper employs the deconstruction of Jacques Derrida as a method in order to analyze the mechanisms of meta-irony and the influence of post-postmodern irony on the Ukrainian cultural space. Irony itself already operates according to the principle of deconstruction, undermining the stability of positive statements through the substitution of meanings. Post-irony goes even further by questioning the very operation of substitution itself, which leads to the identification of binary oppositions. Thus, the deconstructive power of irony is only intensified and, reacting to changes in global and local trends, moves to the next "meta-meta" level - meta-irony. Unlike previous forms of irony, meta-irony allows itself to be everything and nothing at the same time, pushing its deconstructive nature to the extreme. This manifests itself in: 1) the recursive layering of irony upon its own structure, where each subsequent level of the comic deconstructs the previous one. Within this “infinite tower", irony loses its external object and becomes what it was always intended to be - an autonomous process of ironic reflection upon its own nature. 2) The form of contemporary trends, namely internet memes, which at first glance are aimed at entertaining the subject, but on the other hand play a double game, using the meta-ironic tower by pushing it to absurdity and producing oversaturated content devoid of meaning and logic, which in turn leads to self-mockery and the destruction of conventional irony. Simultaneously, through the diversity of memes themselves, they allow themselves to be maximally simple and even naïve, creating irony through the absence of irony. And finally, 3) the form of the "new sincerity". The latter becomes especially relevant for the Ukrainian subject, where irony functions rather as a "lifesaver" for articulating traumatic or liminal experience, allowing sincere values to be affirmed through ironic language. In this way, meta-irony constructs meanings through its own deconstructiveness, which ultimately leads to the minimization or even complete disappearance of the ironic element itself. This is precisely why meta-irony bears such a name: it plays a double game with meanings, maximizing its deconstructive potential, thereby transforming into a peculiar form of everything and nothing, oscillating between clarity in the form of sincerity and the total chaos of endless references.