Yes, I certainly think there is an ironic element to his imagery. For example, when using guns and violent imagery in his performances, he's not glorifying these things but underlining America's obsessions with guns, not because he's anti-gun ownership per se (though he could be, idk), but because he feels there is hypocrisy in the way some Americans blame "bad guys" yet contribute to their existence. For example, with the Columbine shootings, he was blamed by Chirstian conservatives for pushing the shooters to act, but he's trying to tell these people that they are looking for a devil, a scapegoat to blame whenever something goes wrong, basically blame falls on the outcasts and never on those things truly responsible, for example, advertising to instill fear of not being "one of the crowd" if you don't this or that product, willful ignorance, the fact that the shooters were bullied and ostracized, and politicains who blame him and other artists for supposedly pushing shooters to act, while they don't take responsibility because they want their voters to keep voting for them.
That being said, I never looked at the question of
this way. People who like disturbing things and imagery are (much) more rare than those who don't. Most people like comfort in an emotional and psycholigical way, myself included, and I'm
polr, though I think there are varying thresholds of what people consider "horrible".
You raise an interesting point, though I myself haven't explored the question enough to really address it.