I was taught in English class in high school that irony is an ambulance running people over, not just sarcasm

This is a relief, there is hope yet haha

My understanding, from how people use it here is that irony is a situation which is a contrast between the expected/intended and actual outcome.

It’s ironic when a fire station burns down

This definition is truly upsetting: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/irony

Americans, no. Bad Americans.

This definition is correct (until we come up with a good substitute, FFS America): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony

Glad Wikipedia agrees with me on this one haha We’ll at least the introductory definition.

Edit: to answer your question. I dunno. I just think this form of “ironic” just didn’t take off in Australia.

Mostly because we already have words for what Americans use it for. And don’t have words to replace irony.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Oh interesting, I hadn’t noticed that!

The American use “ironically” is probably the only difference between our dialects that I’ll stand firm on.

My friends, we already have a use for the word, and it’s not this!

I’m all about linguistic innovation, but using “unironically” in place of “seriously” and “ironically” in place of “sarcastically”/”not seriously" is not happy times for me.

Unless you give me a new word for irony.

I quite like y’all, I use that all the time, not against Americanisms in general, just this one.