What’s the cost of being cool? Ironic detachment and cynicism is the signature tone of my generation—you can find it everywhere from The Simpsons to imageboard culture to the dismissive tone of voice we use for nearly everything we say, dropping our pitch at the end of every phrase as though we don’t really care about it.

I used to celebrate this attitude of irreverence, and it’s true that it was liberating; that it allowed us to take aim at hypocrisies and righteousness that deserved to be taken down a peg, and freed us from having to take things too seriously, but it also got in the way of lifting up our voices to support what we needed to, and saving our mockery for what truly deserves it.

From a personal investigation into how my voice changed and lost its characteristic ironic detachment after I left Canada, this article launches into a broader study of the social and political tides that shaped that tone of voice in the first place, and the attitude that underlies it.