Could it be possible that cynicism is dead? Am I being sarcastic? Can I even "tell" anymore? A few non-cynical stars have aligned recently to lead me towards this conclusion. You can first of all blame Obama's election victory in 2008. For once, most people cast aside their sarky remarks and genuinely believed that as Mariah Carey might say, a hero came along. Such overwhelming positivity (YES WE DID!) enveloped much of the globe with a warm, fuzzy, bi-racial feeling. For a while there, folks, we were living in a high-on-life montage. We were the world, we were the future.

Now Haiti has become a disaster which has seemed to unite the world. In terms of charity work by individual citizens here, there seems to be a far greater reaction on a personally motivated level than any other humanitarian disaster over the past couple of decades. Left, right and centre, people are organising charity table quizzes, gigs, bake sales and personal donations. How uncynical. Maybe because finance was our biggest distraction, and now that we seem to have accepted as a nation that pretty much everyone is broke, there are other greater things to worry about.

Our personal entertainment has changed too. Pop culture is having a very uncynical moment, but perhaps only because it has skipped through irony and back again, wrapped it in a bow and presented it as a post-ironic, post-cynical package. Although it can be hard to tell how much irony is involved, a bit like that Simpsons episode where a teenager watching a rock concert couldn't decide whether or not he was being sarcastic anymore. TV is consumed by Glee, a grown-up(ish) version of High School Musical, an example of a post-cynical sandwich filled with irony that reverts on itself so much that people end up taking it at face value.

Remember when reality TV was about creating enemies out of the real-life characters? Laughing at annoying people? Now it's about laughing with them, creating favourites, and rallying a person to the point of placing them on a pedestal and turning them into a very Warholian celebrity (devoid of Warhol's own cynicsm, mind you.) Look at two incredibly popular television programmes: The Hills is a lesson in post-authenticity, a scripted reality programme whose ridiculousness no one even bothers to point out anymore, instead opting to make stars out of its fake cast and treat them as genuine celebrities.

In a particularly gloomy world these days, there seems to be a reactionary wave of positivism breaking on every available shore. There's a belief that the good guy can win, that solutions can be reached, or perhaps that the genuine reality is so hideous that we ignore it to the point of creating a fake happy half-reality.

In the world's biggest social venue, a dangerous potion of cynicism coupled with apathy typified online analysis for so long, and was part of the reason that people not overly familiar with seeking out information and opinion online discredited blogs and other sources of individual-driven information.

But there now seems to be a shift in the traditional online 'snark' culture where everything has to be torn apart with hefty over reactions (like a commenter on a benign YouTube video posting "I hope you die".) Previously, this reactionary world of semi-analysis and commentary was based around slagging, faulting, parodying, opposing and shooting down. Now, as that online culture matures, and the age of anonymity on the internet fades with people fully shifting their real identities online as opposed to constructed ones, that cynical reactionary way of treating, well, everything, is disappearing.

In the movie world, Avatar is now the highest-grossing film of all time. It is perhaps the most uncynical film ever, a story about love that overcomes species, about the value of nature, and how love conquers all. With giant blue people! Not that that has stopped well over a billion dollars worth of viewers from embracing it at face value.

Cynicism has also become a victim of 21st century escapism, something that typifies popular culture at the moment, from the surreal dress-up of Lady Gaga to the letting go anti-cool of just having fun in clubs and in music, a venue previously occupied by chin stroking and hipsters trying to out-hipster each other. Sarcasm seems so '90s, a subtext of Generation X, Beavis and Butthead, Friends and ironic trash TV. Now, there seems to be a juvenile willingness to trust, which has taken over from the 20th century definition of cynicism, which is basically to be addled with distrust.

Of course, there are dangers that come with not being cynical. Taking things at face value when very little is pure, is one.

But ultimately, cynics are humanity's party poopers. Cynicism is a road block to personal and collective development. It rewards pessimism and stunts positivity. Without it, we're suckers, but with too much, it's hard to find a decent amount of joy in the world.

umullally@tribune.ie