Define Cynical Fan Forums

I remember I once listened to an interview with "Maus" creator Art Spiegelman, in which he said the ironic humor of, say, MAD magazine was the perfect antidote to the over-the-top sincerity of 1950s advertising, but in the modern era, advertisers had begun selling our own ironic cynicism back to us, and what was called for now was a different kind of humor-- straightforward, unironic, declaring simply that the emperor has no clothes. In the 90s, I definitely think that was true. This cartoon was based on those "image is nothing, thirst is everything" ads one soft drink company was running at the time. The irony of being lectured by a catchy slogan about how unimportant image was inspired this cartoon.