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Comment by gatehouse | Hacker News Reader

I can't tell if this is a parody site or not: http://www.philosophersmail.com/310114-relationships-stewart...

The superficial resemblance to the daily mail leads me to instantly discredit the whole site.

Its not a parody, but it deliberately uses the form of the Daily Mail. However, instead of delivering the ephemeral and trivial content of the DM, it uses that form to deliver content (intended to be) more potent.

I think one reason for using the DM's form is to highlight how empty the content of a online newspaper is, when compared to something thoughtful dressed up in the same design.

It's not out-and-out parody, more like halfway between parody and straight-out serious. The idea is 'what if we presented serious topics in an accessible way, with a tongue-in-cheek delivery'. It's Alain de Botton's latest project.

I should have guessed. Hence the prominent advertisment to buy his latest philosophical offering, "The News, A User's Manual".

It is one of the weirdest sites I've been to recently. I'm not sure if they're making fun of the Daily Mail, or trying to be like it to get hits, or what. The stories just seem off.

I spent a couple of minutes scanning through their content, and I think the theme of the site is pretty clear: they analyze popular culture (people, media, consumption, and so on) in order to tease out philosophical questions and theories.

The reference to the Daily Mail is relatively simple. This website obsesses over the same culture, but for an entirely different purpose. As far as I can tell, it's not supposed to be an ironic publication, like the Onion or something. And I don't think they are making fun of the daily mail necessarily

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