The definition of irony #2

Those who were here last month will remember my previous post on the definition of irony, which showed a security camera at George Orwell Plaza in Barcelona.

I found this item posted at J-Walk; it is equally ironic, and is well explained by the original author in his post "Look What My Kid Got at Wall•E" -

I took my son to see Wall•E this weekend…

Wall•E paints a picture of a planet destroyed by a thoughtless humanity in the thrall of a consumer culture that eventually overwhelms the earth with… junk. Humans are forced to abandon the planet and blast off into space… Meanwhile on earth… dust-and-garbage storms blow scour the surface of the earth.

Depressing—all that garbage, all that thoughtless over-consumption, all that environmental devastation. But look what we got on the way into the theater…

That’s a watch. A cheap plastic watch. According to the instruction card that comes with it, my son’s Wall•E watch was made in China, it’s not water resistant, and its batteries are not replaceable. So basically it’s a disposable watch brought to us by a movie about the dire consequences of thoughtless over-consumption, a watch that is just one of many—tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands—that will be coming soon to landfills near you.