In yesterday’s International Herald Tribune Michael Cieply discusses the possible influence of violent movies on the Virginia Tech shooting and vice versa. The article ends with this quote by Martin Kaplan, “director of the Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California, which examines the links among entertainment, commerce and society”: “Famously, 9/11 was supposed to be the end of irony. If anything, irony has blossomed.” This leaves us with the question: when is the blossoming going to end? When will irony die? And what we are we going to gain from its demise?