Since the establishment of the Internet, the new public sphere has been accused of a harmful excess of irony. It seems to be the return of a melancholy discomfort regarding irony. Is irony a threat to public life at all times? Or is there something in particular about our times that has accelerated its propagation? This essay figures out the relationship between irony and the current public mass conversation, beginning with the restoration of the political meaning that irony had in its origins, Greek democracy. From there, it traces a journey through the history of irony from Socrates to David Foster Wallace, passing through Sören Kierkegaard and Richard Rorty, to show its unique character as antidote and paradigm of the ills of the public conversation.