I was studying stuff like this in the 1990s.
It also goes much further back. The parallel I remember about 'irony' was about how the character Alf Garnet and his racism. The argument was that the audience was supposed to be laughing AT Garnet's views. In reality what they found was that a large percentage of the audience was laughing along with Garnet's views and agreed with him.
On the Wiki about 'Till Death Us Do Part' under the controversy section there is a very similar explanation to the one about 'ironic sexism' in the Critic Article above:
Although Speight said he wrote the series to challenge racism, it was felt by some critics that many people watched it because they agreed with Garnett's views. Anthony Clark of Screenonline stated, "Sadly, Speight's defence was far from watertight—having a white actor, Spike Milligan, black up and don a turban in one episode is clearly questionable", and added that "In Till Death Us Do Part, Alf's lengthy rants go largely unchallenged; his wife does little more than raise an eyebrow, while the responses from daughter Rita and the wholly unsympathetic Mike are often little more than impotent quips or frustrated laughter." However, John Cleese defended the series in 2020, saying "We laughed at Alf's reactionary views. Thus, we discredited them, by laughing at him. Of course, there were people — very stupid people — who said, 'Thank God someone is saying these things at last'. We laughed at these people too."
Now John Cleese has stood up for gender criticals, however he has also proved himself to be screaming sexist, racist bellend in recent years too.
It didn't end in the 90s. I think Bo' Selecta! which ran 2002 - 2009 was part of the same thing, and then Celebrity Juice. (I've always been really uncomfortable with the treatment of Fearne Cotton and Holly Willoughby) which is still in production. Bo Selecta! has since forced apologies over its 'black face' from Leigh Francis, but I think Celebrity Juice will age particularly badly over time.
So this is a pattern that has played out regularly, with women reduced to being impotent and giving frustrated laughs to 'go along with the joke' rather than actively challenge. Actively confronting sexist and racist behaviour in comedy wasn't allowed then, it wasn't allowed in the 1990s and its not now because the power lies with the script writers and directors to decide what is funny, it doesn't belong to those who ultimately are the butt of the 'joke'.
The most notable of 'ironic humour' is perhaps SouthPark which was deliberately ironically offensive through comedy but made a point of trying to offend absoluetely everyone in this way - it never hide from its desire to offend through comedy and made a point of 'owning it'. The whole point was, that if you were going to do it, no one could be off limits and above self reflective criticism. And again you got the problem with people often laughing along with it rather than seeing the irony. Modern trolling has its roots in SouthPark culture and that has quite a dark side to it.
So yeah, long history of deliberate in your face 'ironic' offensive comedy. Which isn't quite as harmless and ironic as it makes itself out to be. And it definitely now plays out in real life via social media.
This is quite a step away from more considered and clever observational humour which might touch on sex, race, culture etc. The point is its problematic when the ENTIRE content and intent is this 'ironic' humour.