So am I just a silly person? Yes. Extremely. But besides that, why do I write satire news?
If you have been an Indy reader for any length of time, chances are that you’ve come across little nuggets of joy like “Local couple arrested on food porn charges” or “Exasperated NASA scientists find cat hair on the moon.” These have generally been well-received, although there have been a few confused people who did not appear to notice the word “HUMOR” at the top of the lead image. It’s subtle, I know.
Then there have been more controversial pieces like “Dixie State University disappoints record number of freshman,”
To my astonishment, some people decided to read between the lines and insert a narrative that wasn’t there about some criticism of the faculty at DSU.
I emphasized “repeat ethical and civil rights violations,” the absurd and misguided “Trailblazers” rebranding frenzy, the firing of beloved professors, and the embarrassing persistence of “Dixie” in the institution’s name — all issues dealing with the administration, not the faculty. I also touched on the irresponsibility of DSU students in their treatment of public lands — alleged not by me (I wouldn’t know) but by those who have commented on my observation of the sorry state of public places like Pioneer Park.
What I didn’t emphasize was the failure or incompetence of the faculty. Although sometimes when someone is guilty, he or she becomes overly defensive in situations wherein he or she isn’t actually being attacked. At any rate, while I stand by my assessment of DSU as an overall sub-par “university,” I’ve sure as hell never blamed the teachers for that. My impression is that they’re doing their very best under their Orwellian regime of Biff “The Spliff,” Rent-A-Cop Reid, Doajo “I’m not really here” Hicks, and everyone else whose pulling strings in the corrupt DSU administration from the Board of Regents to people in St. George City’s administration like Mayor Jon Pike and … well, there’s no telling how deep the corruption goes, really.
DSU is not unique in having had its largest freshman class this year. It’s called population growth. DSU is quick to pat itself on the back for anything as trivial as successfully zipping itself up at the urinal.
Furthermore, the piece was both a rebuttal to this grandstanding press release as well as a refusal to be distracted from DSU’s chronic malfeasance. Browse Google for a minute and you’ll quickly see that DSU is not unique in having had its largest freshman class this year. It’s called population growth. DSU is quick to pat itself on the back for anything as trivial as successfully zipping itself up at the urinal. In addition, enrollment numbers of international students (which are somehow better than illegal immigrants, I guess because banks give them loans) are at an all-time high.
So the fact that DSU had its largest freshman class really is nothing but a flimsy publicity stunt — a distraction from the fact that it just got its pants pulled down and its bottom spanked in public in its shameful crusade against Varlo Davenport. And that was preceded by a 2015 civil rights lawsuit for First Amendment violations against students, which it lost, as well as followed by a hilarious title IX lawsuit, which it is poised to lose. Sometimes DSU gives me more material than I can handle.
Social commentary in the form of satire is not created to be popular. Art doesn’t apologize. From Ovid to Voltaire to Zappa, it’s been a cornerstone of revolutionary self-expression for centuries, and it still is.
I think satire news is not only one of the most relevant forms of art in 2016 but also one of the most accessible and direct forms of contemporary social commentary, and as such I write satire news for a damn good reason — several, in fact.
It’s just fun as hell
I studied music performance and composition in college, not English or journalism. I was offered a teaching assistantship for graduate studies in English at my Alma Mater, and I thought, hey, free degree. Ok, sure. But someone forgot to write a letter of recommendation, and being more interested in getting back to Nashville than fighting red tape for a degree program I was only half-interested in, I didn’t chase it down.
And yet my dream job — besides being Bill Stewart — has always been writing for The Onion. In high school, I was the proud publisher of “The Shaven Butt,” a four-page home publication that I circulated throughout the school. Once. I was told quite firmly by the administration at my high school not to do that again. I shouldn’t have listened. Fortunately, I ignored most of my teachers’ advice.
But writing satire news anywhere is about as good as writing for The Onion. I only hope that, somewhere out there, my high school teachers disapprove. The disapproval of those whose respect has no value is all the more reason why I write satire news. Well, that and to bring professional douchebags down a notch.
All news is fake anyway
Public trust in the media is at historically low levels, unsurprisingly — who believes this stuff? And it’s not just Fox News. Fox’s factual accuracy rating has been reported to be at around 40 percent. But the so-called liberal bias is becoming increasingly less “so-called.” Everyone who isn’t pandering to the left is pandering to the right, and really no one is pandering to the public at large or the truth anymore. To top it off, 90 percent of the media are owned by six companies. Those companies are interested in profits, which are all to often at odds with presenting the truth for public scrutiny.
Just last year, Gallup released results of a poll that demonstrated that journalists are less trusted than clergy. Clergy! Journalists, who are supposed to report the facts, are trusted less than guys who peddle fairy tales and fondle kids.
So our so-called Fourth Estate has been watered down to almost nothing. Even locally, we have USA Today Jr. to rely on for your hard-hitting southern Utah news. That’s right, USA Today — known for secreting small, easily digested newslike substances that aren’t quite the National Enquirer but definitely aren’t the New York Times. After that, it’s St. George News, about which I have nothing bad to say in particular … but I’ve yet to really see it boldly take issue with the status quo here, and I really couldn’t think of anything less relevant than reporting on who got arrested. Whee! “News.”
When someone is more interested in money than the truth, they’re much more easily silenced. But when someone is only interested in the truth, this funny little thing called “freedom of speech” arises.
Like it or not, you’re reading fake news half the time anyway. It’s just not funny. If I’m going to read fake news, I want it to be funny, damnit! That leads to the next reason why I write satire news.
The presentation is the best part of the joke
If you were ever in Chicago before 2013, you might have had the joy of holding a hard copy of “The Onion” in your hands. It was the pinnacle of human civilization. There is something magical and surreal about holding an actual newspaper that in every way looks like a newspaper but is in no way a newspaper. Even The Onion’s editorial style mimics the Associated Press. It is simply the Holy Grail of satire.
As I noted, I think that American journalism is an utter joke anymore, and I’m not alone. As of 2016, it has largely dwindled to being a series of alarmist nonsense about “crimes” — DUIs and other such inflammatory nonsense — that no one needs to hear about on one hand and straight-up corporatocratic propaganda on the other. It’s kindling, but at least it does have a use.
So to me, there’s nothing funnier than taking these stodgy tools and making something useful out of them: a joke.
I mean, news is already a joke! May as well make a real one, which is why I write satire news.
Ridicule is a powerful rhetorical tool
The world is scary. We have pretty much no control over what’s going on. Our food is poisoned. Our water is fluoridated. Our democracy has been republicked, our republic had been democrapped, and your votes mean little to nothing. Let’s make fun of it!
Among my literary heroes are noble types, I guess, like Upton Sinclair and Norman Mailer — the whole New Journalism crew, really — but also the likes of Woody Allen, Tom Robbins, Mark Twain, and Douglas Adams. I walk in the shadow of some of the greatest purveyors of tomfoolery in the history of letters.
Out of those fellas, Mark Twain is the one who stands out as the real flamethrower. Woe to he who fell under the ire of Mark Twain, only to be ruthlessly eviscerated by his razor-sharp wit and his probably-not-as-sharp-but-still-definitely-pointy pen. Or his typewriter. It couldn’t feel good to be eviscerated by a typewriter.
Fast-forward to a decade or so ago when Jon Stewart took over The Daily Show. Before him was George Carlin, but he was still doing stand-up. However, Stewart did what The Onion did: He took a format and satirized it — and yet, in a way, he was still able to deliver the news with it because he used the format with such finesse, satire or not. It’s no coincidence that an Onion writer became Stewart’s head writer.
Back to the present, mockery has become a legitimate means of delivering the news. Jon Stewart did to news what Weird Al Yankovic did to the accordion: He made it cool. Ok, maybe Weird Al didn’t make the accordion cool, but you get the point. Jon Stewart, through the power of ridicule, brought the otherwise indifferent 20- and 30-something demographic back into politics, and I would speculate that he has reshaped the national political landscape as a result by engaging younger voters on their own terms. It’s what MTV’s “Rock the Vote” tried and failed embarrassingly to do. Suck it, Kurt Loder.
Our freedom of speech entitles us — nay, implores us— to mock and deride the buffoonery of our inbred and half-retarded ruling elite, particularly here at home in southern Utah. They should be ashamed of themselves. But they’re too stupid and too spoiled to feel shame.
And so, since I’m all too often unsure whether I should cry or laugh, I try to laugh. And that’s why I write satire news.
Editors’ note: A previous version of this piece misspelled Doajo Hicks’ name.
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