The funniest thing would be to keep running the site as-is but swap out the insanity for stuff that reads like insanity but is legit or morally sound. The audience might not notice, and could (IMHO) easily be duped into supporting good causes!
For example everybody knows Swift's Modest Proposal does not seriously intend that the problems in Ireland ought to be fixed by literally eating children, but if you read it, the proposal also very clearly explains what should be done, in the form of taxation of the wealthy absentee landlords (many of them English) for example - it just couches all these boring but entirely reasonable steps as ludicrous and easily dismissed while insisting that eating babies is a good idea.
I often suggest that satire is a dangerous double edged sword and not a good primary vehicle for positive change. Part of your audience will understand it's satire, but a significant part maybe even a majority, might take is as genuine or worse come to embrace/support the satirized.
I believe we ask and expect too much of satire which relies heavily on hypocrisy and shame, two concepts that no longer carry the same weight.
Examples: South Park, The Colbert Report, SNL, The Onion
And ok, if there is some committee somewhere to dictate that all satire must be "responsible", must follow its founding Swiftian maxim, then fine, we don't have to call it that. But whatever it is can still be good, can help those find a little fun in an absurd world. We should care as much about the simply depressed people as we do the possibly confused or evil.
I don't need to use a toilet on a train most of the time, but I think long distance trains obviously should all have toilets - even if I didn't need one this trip.
In larger works the other side of the coin needn't be in the next paragraph. When I read Private Eye for example the cover headline "MAN IN HAT SITS ON CHAIR" isn't doing anything beyond poking fun at the King (the crown is just a hat, the throne is just a chair) but the magazine overall funds a lot of serious investigative journalism and sheds light on important issues. Years before a TV drama made it into a government scandal problems with Horizon and getting justice for those wrongly convicted were extensively discussed in the Eye for example.
Yes, if you expect anything from satire you expect too much. Let it be art, not propaganda.
Allow yourself to find poor execution of agreeable messages distasteful. Allow yourself to enjoy good execution of messages you disagree with.
My friend I have some news for you.
Edit: almost ended it there but remembered what website I’m on.
I don’t think there’s a material difference between art and propaganda. The art you like is merely the propaganda which you do not question.
What is it's message?
But we're not ready to go full on free jazz/postmodernist/de-constructionist. You're not ready for it yet, but your kids are going to love it."
It could be merely that watermelons are beautiful. Or it could be that the artist supports the people of Palestine.
For a less extreme example, think about the paintings of Norman Rockwell. Are they just pretty images? Or do they communicate norms?
Think also about what is censored vs what is not censored.
If your point is “all art is propaganda aside from art that exists and must be replaced piece-by-piece with hypothetical counterparts in my head to support this conjecture” you could have just written that. Though “some art is propaganda and some is not” is less profound sounding than “all art is propaganda”
(significantly he made a gift of these paintings to the french state as a war memorial)
Propaganda doesn't inherently mean bad or political. Healthy lifestyle propaganda is actually a good thing, for example (also the current healthy lifestyle propaganda seems poorly executed. I much prefer the 60s american, european and soviet versions of it).
I like this thought because it can be directly refuted by Cotton Eye Joe by Rednex — a highly popular piece of art that does nothing but present the audience with questions to ponder.
You cannot “explain what you do believe under the cover of pretending to dismiss it” without blurring the line between propaganda and art. That is true of both the best art and propaganda. If someone disagrees with the message, or coöpts it, it’s propaganda.
This makes sense. If you find yourself understanding and judging messages based simply off of their merits then you have failed to insert an arbitrary aesthetic filter into your cognitive process. The wisest sages know to value style over substance
Or even: 'the wisest sages know that incorrect results can be based on some sound thinking and some muddled thinking, and correct results can be derived by tortuous thinking'
Or maybe: 'the wisest sages know that some things are neither objectively true nor objectively false, and can appreciate good arguments for positions they disagree with'
When I write with the intent of my words being read at face value I get downvoted, flagged or my post get sent into the void by some AI depending on platform.
So satire and memes it is.
Indeed. It's amazing to me how many people I encounter these days who don't appear to consider hypocrisy a moral failing.
ALSO: thinking means changing your mind, which often exposes you to being called a hypocrite
However people are not always in a position to change things and satire can be a useful outlet for venting, but culturally can also be good for providing talking points.
Southpark and the Onion strike a chord with me the others less so, I think because they believe that they are agents for change.
I love John Oliver though. He follows up his rants with some sensible ideas sometimes. Not everyone’s cup of tea though for sure.
I've never read this definition from any historical author or famous literary critic. I think you made this up yourself from first principles-- am I right on that?
In any case, this definition would make a special case out of Animal Farm which is probably the most famous satire. I cringe imagining Orwell have one of the animals "dismiss" his preferred theoretical vision of good governance as a wink to the audience. I don't even think Orwell presumed to know what that would look like.
When you take a satirical concept and ratchet up the absurdity such that only ignorant (willfully or otherwise) people believe it, the result can be a powerful influence over them. Conspiracy theories often use this approach, as do talking heads on some networks.
Think about how early Stephen Colbert skits often comprised of him acting like Bill O'Reilly; not saying funny things in the style of O'Reilly, but merely imitating him. The difference between satire and propaganda is often packaging and audience.
For another example, you can look at posts of people who read Onion articles without realizing they are satire. These people are often pissed off, so much so that they share a 3 year old article on social media to spread the word.
- Radium girls
- Eugenics experiments
- Forced sterilization
- ~600 Tennessee sober "drunk driving" arrests
- The Douma Gas hoax
Fun times.
And, ironically since it's what launched Jones' career, Bohemian Club & Grove: https://x.com/abbieasr/status/1462953203067240450
Luckily my conscience is clean because I discovered the existence of that place not from AJ but by studying the North Pacific Coast Railroad, which used to go directly to The Grove in Sonoma:
https://archive.org/details/bwb_W7-BOG-168
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1SkFrgLj-TR4gyw9Y4m...
For anyone so inclined, the path of the NPCR makes a beautiful Sunday drive!
Too late to edit but I just realized the version of this I linked removed the “Bohemian Club” that was present in this older version. Strange! https://x.com/abbieasr/status/1312512066071060480
> “The September 1942 meeting [of the S-1 Executive Committee] was held at Bohemian Grove. Nichols and Major Thomas T. Crenshaw, Jr., attended, along with physicist Robert Oppenheimer. This meeting resolved most of the outstanding issues confronting the [Manhattan] project, but [Vannevar] Bush and [James B.] Conant felt that the time had now come for the Army to take over the project, something that had already been approved by the president on June 17, 1942. After some discussion, it was decided that [Leslie R.] Groves, who would be promoted to the rank of brigadier general, would become the director of the Manhattan Project on September 23, 1942. He would be answerable to the Military Policy Committee (MPC), which would consist of Styer, Bush (with Conant as his alternate) and Rear Admiral William R. Purnell.”
Sounds like that's sort of what's happening:
"The publication plans to reintroduce Infowars in January as a parody of itself, mocking “weird internet personalities” like Mr. Jones who traffic in misinformation and health supplements, Ben Collins, the chief executive of The Onion’s parent company, Global Tetrahedron, said in an interview."
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/14/business/media/alex-jones...
What a deranged fantasy this is and yet how often it shows up. The audience will notice. Those who don't and eventually discover your duplicity will never forgive you for it. What you propose is disgusting and amoral, as it has no value, and is designed to mollify yourself by bulling people you clearly perceive as being beneath you.
Or is just the usage of the word "duped"? Some people are more interested in sensational rhetoric than more even-keeled reporting. It's unfortunate that they're currently mostly taken advantage of by hucksters. I think the creation of publications genuinely interested in facts but that use more appealing rhetoric is important to preserving journalism as an institution.
Crazy bullshit is only tempting if it's part of your engrieved group. A clever roleplay won't have the spiritual depravtivy needed.