As an offshoot of post-postmodernism, the New Sincerity school of artistic thought is a reaction against decades of cynicism and irony as a mode of literary meaning-making. The movement’s ideals were first outlined in David Foster Wallace’s essay “E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction,” first published in 1993. The essay argues for a model of fiction writing that moves away from “hip posturing” and toward an embrace of intentional sentimentality, honesty, and addressing the common problems of humanity without the ironic distance that dominated from the 1960s through the 1990s. In literature, writers like Wallace, Dave Eggers, Michael Chabon, and Zadie Smith were early figures in this loose constellation of artists, but the school of thought is not limited to literature: the films of Wes Anderson, the music of Sufjan Stevens, and the portraiture of Kehinde Wiley could all be considered a part of the movement.

What connects all these artists is an employment of the tools of postmodernism toward an open embrace of emotion and putting high-minded values at the forefront of the work. This functions as an important counter-narrative to the development of postmodern irony as a standard way of navigating American life, particularly in online spaces.