Comment by Johnny555 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Johnny555 | Hacker News Reader

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>It's not clever satire because unlike say, the Gulf of Mexico, South America is an actual real geographical designator in common usage.

It's almost as dumb as renaming lake Ontario to Lake America to "punish" Canada (presumably because it shares its name with the province of Ontario), when that lake has had its name since the 1600's (before the USA or Canada even existed) and is based on a Native American Iroquoian word. And the province of Ontario was named after the lake, not the other way around.

But at least with South Park, I can understand their motivation.

My point is that the satire doesn't work because it doesn't understand the issue at hand. A fictional American town being renamed to to South America doesn't actually capture the absurdities or issues of the current American administrations actions and directly undermines the message because the name they picked is another actual place name, rather then a made up vapid one (which is the case with "Gulf of America" and "Lake America").

The pattern is "take a place name and change the last word to America" (Gulf of America, Lake America, New America)

The fact that applying that to produce "South America" which is a real place--and a continent at that--precisely amplifies the absurdity

I have to say, though: inverting the trope of "you can't make people laugh at a joke by explaining why it's funny" by trying to stop people from laughing at a joke by explaining why it isn't funny is a truly Kaufman-esque bit of comedy

> My point is that the satire doesn't work

"If you have to explain satire to someone, you might as well give up"

  -Barry Humphries

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