Where does “I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter” originate from?
It’s from an episode of The Simpson, but I can’t remember which one. Homer says it in response to something Bart says.
It was on Usenet in Jan 1998 attributed to Homer.
The episode was ‘mountain of madness’, season 8, first aired Feb 2 1997. (Gee, almost exactly ten years ago!!) The one where Homer and Mister Burns end up buried under the avalanche and both go kinduv crazy
Can someone please explain to me what the remark means? I get a bit lost between the multiple layers of irony.
Does it mean: “You, sir are crazy. Go away.”
or: “I like your kind of crazy” .
I’m not quite sure what the usual references mean, or indeed if there’s a pattern.
The original, if I recall correctly, was quite unironic. More like, “You know, no-one’s ever said something like that to me before, but DAMMIT if that doesn’t make a lot of sense. You are clearly an individual posessing not only insight, but courage to say things that the Powers That Be do not want us to know about. Is there anything more you can tell me?”
Or at least that’s what I thought. 
Before the internet took off, conspiracy theorists would disseminate their lunacy via badly photocopied newsletters to which one would subscribe.
The Mel Gibson Conspiracy film gives a good idea.
These days making a website has taken all the fun out of it.
Ah ha! I tracked down the quote, from Wikipedia:
So, irony.
I still disagree. Bart, possibly, was being ironic, just saying things that he knew would annoy his mother. But Homer was almost charmingly sincere in his reply… as if he really thought Bart would be putting out a newsletter.
At least, that’s my two cents worth and I’m sticking to it.
I agree. I use it as a statement of support and interest in whatever a previous poster has said, usually about boobs.
Do you have a newsletter to which I may subscribe?
Homer: So, Burns is gonna make us all go on a stupid corporate retreat up in the mountains to learn about teamwork. Which means we’ll have to cancel our plans to hang around here.
Bart: Teamwork is overrated.
Homer: Huh?
Bart: Think about it. I mean, what team was Babe Ruth on? Who knows.
Lisa and Marge: Yankees.
Bart: Sharing is a bunch of bull, too. And helping others. And what’s all this crap I’ve been hearing about tolerance?
Homer: Hmm. Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
I think if Lisa had said it it would be irony. Homer lacks the wit for irony.
But he produces it unwittingly from time to time all the same. I vote with the irony people.
But it’s not irony if you don’t know you’re doing it. Look at Homer’s attitude and facial expressions; he’s being sincere, even if he is a doofus.
Perhaps the broader question is why would Homer think that agreeing with someone would be basis for subscription to a newsletter? Never mind the fact that Bart doesn’t publish newsletters; there’s some cultural reference from 1997 that we’ve forgotten or that we’re missing. For example, Rush Limbaugh was bigger then; did he have a newsletter then that people would subscribe to just because they were intrigued with his ideas? Did disillusioned young adults run around city streets spouting off ideas and encouraging people to subscribe to their newsletters? It’s a funny line now as it was then, but what frame of reference makes it funny?
I agree, because it has nothing to do with Homer. It’s irony not because Homer knows what he’s saying, but because the *writers *and the *viewers *agree he’s an idiot and the words coming out of his mouth mean the opposite of their literal meaning.
“Irony” is, and will always be, first and foremost a literary device employed by writers. Homer may have not been being sarcastic, but his words were definitely ironic.
Kooks used to publish newsletters all the time, and by publish, I mean photocopy or mimeograph some crap they typed out on an IBM Selectric. They would rant and rave on street corners and try to pass them out to anyone walking by. I seem to recall that this was a part of the plot in the movie “Conspiracy Theory” which I think came out around the same time.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there aren’t thousands of kooks out there right now that send out regular newsletters by e-mail to anyone wishing to subscribe.
Now that I think about it, one of my coworkers basically does this right now. It’s mainly about Jesus and also contains his thoughts on politics. It isn’t very good :o
Yep. And when someone else says the same thing now, it’s definitely ironic because, of course, no one would intentionally imitate Homer Simpson without tongue planted firmly in cheek.
One could even go so far as to say that people using it “straight” (that is, to indicate agreement and an interest in further information about, say, boobies) are in fact using it ironically - because the original meaning is to mockingly indicate disagreement. So ironic use of an ironic phrase is…what…meta ironic? It can, therefore, never be used unironically. Either you repeat it in its original ironic state, or you ironically use an already ironic phrase. Isn’t it ironic?
(I feel like I’m in a prealgebra class and have to go count my negative signs to make sure the answer’s on the correct side of the number line!)
What does The Passion of the Christ have to do with this?
:rimshot: