Well, hats off to Christian Lander, who somehow turned a blog about Stuff White People Like into a book. No qualms about blogging and book-writing for him.
The other thing that must be said, of course, is that he gets it uncomfortably right. I’m whiter than I thought, as found I out here, here, here and here, among other places. Here, too, but then he got the definition slightly wrong. Here is mine.
Hannibal and Me: life lessons from history 
Regarding irony, the word’s etymology must come from “iron”.
Iron is hard, unyielding; yet irony is subtle, nuanced, teasing.
So “irony”, being the almost total opposite of it’s supposed root, “iron”, is intrinsically ironical, no?
You crack me up, Christopher. 😉
Apparently, it goes back to the way Socrates spoke: eirein = to speak with feigned ignorance, to dissemble.