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Music
"And if you can't detect the sarcasm, you've misunderstood."
— Lily Allen, "Hard Out Here"
Web Animation
"Fox News, with absolutely zero irony, used something that looked exactly like the Bioshock Infinite logo... You wonder if Fox News is just full of Stephen Colbert contemporaries who have just gone so many levels deep, they don't even know where they are anymore?"
— Yahtzee, Let's Drown Out Smash T.V.
"Soooooo, in the last video, I made a, haha, JOKE about being a furry. I said, given the choice between an animal with fur, and one without fur, that most people would think the animal covered in fur would be cuter and, hahaha, if we applied that logic to people, then EVERYONE would be a furry. I got a mixed bag of responses to that joke. [...] A lot of people were confused, so for the remainder of this video, every time I make a joke, it will be followed by this message: *(shows an airhorn and the word "JOKE" in red)*"
Webcomics
"Fun game: try to post a YouTube comment so stupid that people realize you must be joking. (Hint: This is impossible.)"
"We were going to make fun of Doom³ in today's comic, but they've actually beaten us to it. Every screenshot they release is like a joke we would make."
— Gabe, Penny Arcade, "Believe Me, We Tried"
""It's come to our attention that Puma is now offering a, let me collect myself for a moment, 'gaming shoe', and among its many virtues they tout its grip. Its grip. The nameless fear of any satirist is that the world will become too ridiculous for irony to penetrate."
— Tycho, Penny Arcade, "Shoecifer"
" Web Original
"Next to George Carlin, the greatest comedian who has ever lived. Only difference is that he belongs in a straitjacket."
"Please tell me that Donald Trump will announce on Saturday Night Live that his entire campaign has been a really elaborate marketing stunt to promote his episode."
"In recognition of your superb contributions, you've been given the additional power to lock the entire database if needed to fend off a massive attack."
— Andy Schlafly to an undercover troll, Conservapedia
"A couple of times I tried to be tongue-in-cheek. I used words, but those always seemed to backfire. Like for a 'Media Exposed' segment, I’d throw in words like 'bias, lies, and corruption' which of course were supposed to be self-referential, but the company read it as if they were cracking open the 'bias, lies, and corruption' of competing media outlets. They always got approved by the production head... Eventually I got fired for a totally unrelated reason. Apparently someone complained about picking my nose at a meeting. That’s really all the information I was given at my termination."
"When Uncyclopedia doesn't have to make stuff up to make you look batshit crazy, perhaps it's saying something."
— Rational Wiki on Silvio Berlusconi
"I love the title SLAM DUNK'N HOES. It sounds like something Newt Gingrich would guess if you held a gun to his head and told him to name a rap album."
"If the video was intended to be a parody of teen pop convention, it would be on par with some of the best SNL Digital Shorts by Lonely Island."
Starship Troopers is such an amazing satire most critics didn't even realize it was one. And when someone can't tell that Psychic Gestapo Doogie Howser isn't serious, they can't even be trusted to watch movies for a living.
"And is Seagal, who appears to be one of those guys who wouldn’t get a clue if it was mailed to him by Western Union, even capable of understanding a fairly abstract idea like satire? I don’t think so, for that would indicate Seagal’s entire public life to have been the greatest piece of satiric Performance Art the world has ever known."
— Jabootu on On Deadly Ground
On Deadly Ground"Lobo was designed as a brutal parody of Wolverine's violent stupidity and ended up becoming sincerely popular. And now you know why comic writers stick a cape on an element and go to the pub."
"This is one of those items that even we didn't think would require debunking, but so many readers have since inquired about it that we have to take a stab at explaining it..."
"Breaking News: The Onion on the verge of collapse after not being able to make up shit that is more idiotic than current reality."
To answer the two questions you’ll be asking about 20 minutes into Netflix’s new castaway thriller The I-Land:
1) They tell you how the 10 strangers with wiped memories came to wake up simultaneously on a desert island at the start of episode three, so skip there if you just want to know before you quit;
2) No, this isn’t some deadpan spoof of bad sci-fi, with the lumpen writing, catatonic acting and thuddingly inelegant plotting there to make a postmodern point. It’s really as bad as it initially seems.
1) They tell you how the 10 strangers with wiped memories came to wake up simultaneously on a desert island at the start of episode three, so skip there if you just want to know before you quit;
2) No, this isn’t some deadpan spoof of bad sci-fi, with the lumpen writing, catatonic acting and thuddingly inelegant plotting there to make a postmodern point. It’s really as bad as it initially seems.
—Jack Seale on The I-Land
on The I-Landprokopetz then: Every threat's gotta be quantitatively bigger and badder than the one that came before. Every Deus ex Machina's gotta be shinier than the last one. Every season's gotta end with a massive eleventh-hour powerup for our heroes, only for the next season to raise the stakes enough to put them back in the underdog position.
It's like, you beat the Devil himself? Well, now you’ve gotta fight the Devil's cousin Phil, who has conveniently gone entirely unmentioned up until now, but he's totally twice as evil.
prokopetz now: That last paragraph was literally supposed to be the most ridiculous hypothetical example I could think of, and people are messaging me to say "his name was Metatron, not Phil". I can't even make fun of this show.
It's like, you beat the Devil himself? Well, now you’ve gotta fight the Devil's cousin Phil, who has conveniently gone entirely unmentioned up until now, but he's totally twice as evil.
prokopetz now: That last paragraph was literally supposed to be the most ridiculous hypothetical example I could think of, and people are messaging me to say "his name was Metatron, not Phil". I can't even make fun of this show.
The general consensus on the part of its defenders is that Starship Troopers is a satire on modern American militarism of the Gulf War variety, or on the propagandistic war movies of the 1940’s, or even on the Nazis’ notorious propaganda machine. And for my part, I’m going to assume this to be true, on the grounds that the idea of a Dutch director growing up in the 40’s, only to film a ringing endorsement of fascist militarism 50 years later is too disturbing to contemplate. But the fact is that the only parts of Starship Troopers that play like a satire on anything are the surreal television clips that Verhoven scatters throughout the movie. This is the same technique he used earlier (to much greater effect, I might add) in RoboCop (1987), and as was the case in that movie, the tone of these interjections is far too arch for them to be meant seriously. On the other hand, the rest of the film plays with such a completely straight face that there is little to suggest that it isn’t serious. The problem, I think, is that the incompetent young actors who comprise the bulk of the cast are incapable of anything but the cardboard earnestness they display here. I suppose it’s also possible, as some commentators have suggested, that the players weren’t in on the joke, and were in fact led by their director to believe that Starship Troopers really was the paean to jingoism and sabre-rattling that their performances suggest. I’ve never been much of a believer in conspiracy theories, though, and if it looks like bad acting, sounds like bad acting, and moves like bad acting, I’m inclined to say it’s probably just good old-fashioned bad acting. And the fact that Verhoven let his cast get away with this high school drama club-level crap lays a hefty parcel of blame at his feet too.
— Scott "El Santo" Ashlin, 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting
"apparently the answer to 'how many things do you need to get wrong before it's obvious that you're pretending to not know things as a bit' is 'more than that'"
"While you may ironically make a sexist comment or post, there already has been an instance where it was just trolling and not meant to be humorous, that will not be tolerated. It must be clear that your comment is made ironically for it to not be removed under this rule. If comments that were made ironically or as a joke begin to draw real comments that are rule breaking, the entire thread may be removed."
— Reddit, "Not How Girls Work"
""Items that originated as humour or satire often breach our topic-selection threshold, even articles that are seemingly so ridiculous in concept and/or so thoroughly labelled as being humorous or satiric that nobody could possibly mistake them for something else.
We've had to reassure readers that 1990s-era Beanie Babies toys were not stuffed with brown recluse spider eggs that began hatching 20 years later, that a dog pictured with a slice of ham on its face was not badly burned and in need of medical treatment, and that SeaWorld would not be drowning a live elephant as part of a new attraction.
These examples, as absurd as they may seem on the surface, are not outliers or aberrations - they are some of the most viral 'Is it true?' subjects we've ever undertaken. They put the lie to common refrains about 'obvious humour', 'obvious jokes', or 'obvious' anything else.
Quite evidently nothing can be put online - no matter how preposterous in concept or blatantly labelled it might be — that some people won't believe to be true (or at least allow might be true."''
We've had to reassure readers that 1990s-era Beanie Babies toys were not stuffed with brown recluse spider eggs that began hatching 20 years later, that a dog pictured with a slice of ham on its face was not badly burned and in need of medical treatment, and that SeaWorld would not be drowning a live elephant as part of a new attraction.
These examples, as absurd as they may seem on the surface, are not outliers or aberrations - they are some of the most viral 'Is it true?' subjects we've ever undertaken. They put the lie to common refrains about 'obvious humour', 'obvious jokes', or 'obvious' anything else.
Quite evidently nothing can be put online - no matter how preposterous in concept or blatantly labelled it might be — that some people won't believe to be true (or at least allow might be true."''
"One of the world's most frequently asked questions and greatest mysteries: is Tara Gilesbie trolling?"
"But what if you said, 'My teacher punched me today?', and then said, 'just kidding'? Do you think I would laugh? No, I'd be worried and would want to figure out if you were actually safe at school."
Web Video
"Now I have obviously never been a big fan of 'T-Swizzle', as we used to call her as a joke (but now it seems like maybe it isn't."
"What if this is George Lucas just fucking with everyone? 'Let's have 20 minutes of Wookie noises.' And they let him!"
"Now, some of you are probably looking back on issue 4 and now today's comic and thinking to yourselves, maybe this is all still a parody comic, I mean, Bill Jemas can't be serious when it comes to Wolverine being the first human being and evolving from an otter, right?"
— Linkara on Bill Jemas' satire of Darwin, Marville #5
Chuggaaconroy: I actually didn't know "I Lost on Jeopardy" was a parody, I thought it was just a song Weird Al made.
ProtonJon: No, it is a parody of "My Love's in Jeopardy".
Chugga: It's a pretty clever one, actually.
ProtonJon: No, it is a parody of "My Love's in Jeopardy".
Chugga: It's a pretty clever one, actually.
"Either they got duped by a troll and published a satire of their publication in their own publication, as if it was serious work, or they published such a monumentally stupid anonymous article that a notorious online troll can take credit for it and have it be believed."
— Vernaculis on the Guardian's anonymous article that may or may not have been written by Godfrey Elfwick
on the Guardian's anonymous article that may or may not have been written by Godfrey Elfwick"When I first saw the trailer for this movie a few months back, I genuinely thought it was a joke. I honestly thought it was a Funny or Die trailer, or that it was not gonna be real."
"Let There Be Light is the story of a celebrity atheist who shoots hoops, has a sassy best friend, and through an incident involving alcohol; has a near-death experience, is told to let Jesus into his life, and is sent back to earth, where he converts to Christianity, rebuilds his relationship with his family, meets quirky characters with similar experiences, is ostracized by his former associates, and gets back together with an old love, who is also a Christian, which leads to a wedding scene. Oh wait, that’s a completely different movie. Uh... let me start over. [Repeats the above word-for-word without any differences] That was subtle! Well... more subtle than this movie."
— The Cinema Snob's open words to the review of the aforementioned film
"God—what an amazing metaphor for the creative instinct! What an incredible allegory for when you're first starting out as an artist. Filled with self-doubt and insecurity, wondering whether or not your dreams are worth pursuing. How wonderful to be told—especially when you’re first starting out—that you’re not only allowed, but encouraged, to practice art for your own self satisfaction. To let the audience find you, instead of trying to chase one down. To create only that which brings you joy. It doesn't make the process any easier, but at least there's a clear path—and an incredibly fulfilling one at that!
I always thought the ending of the book—where Roark dynamites a public housing development and then gets off scot-free by lecturing the jury about the inalienable rights of the individual—was pretty hokey, but I get it: it’s all an exercise in modern mythmaking. A metaphor.
I can't remember exactly when it happened, but at some point between my reading the book for the first time in high school, and my friend seeing a copy on my shelf 13 years later, I found out that Rand did not intend it as a metaphor. None of it. She was writing real, live, idealized portraits of real-world human beings whom she either admired or despised. She literally believed that the only moral imperative is self-interest, that unregulated free-market capitalism is the only moral socioeconomic system, that welfare is evil, taxation is theft, and anyone who isn't rich & successful only remains that way because of their own laziness and lack of talent."
I always thought the ending of the book—where Roark dynamites a public housing development and then gets off scot-free by lecturing the jury about the inalienable rights of the individual—was pretty hokey, but I get it: it’s all an exercise in modern mythmaking. A metaphor.
I can't remember exactly when it happened, but at some point between my reading the book for the first time in high school, and my friend seeing a copy on my shelf 13 years later, I found out that Rand did not intend it as a metaphor. None of it. She was writing real, live, idealized portraits of real-world human beings whom she either admired or despised. She literally believed that the only moral imperative is self-interest, that unregulated free-market capitalism is the only moral socioeconomic system, that welfare is evil, taxation is theft, and anyone who isn't rich & successful only remains that way because of their own laziness and lack of talent."
— Cold Crash Pictures: "Why The Hell Do I Own A Copy Of The Fountainhead?"
The Fountainhead?""The thing that a comedian will often do is take something to its most extreme and absurd conclusion. What do you do when the film starts beyond where you can ever go and escalates from there?"
"Capitalism, as well as the media that reinforces it, the businesses that extol it, and the neoliberal democracies that prop it up, has become so monstrously inhuman that our lives now feel like satire. And when our lives feel like satire, our lives begin to feel inauthentic."
Diabetus: You know, the more of these videos that we do, the more you've gotta question: are some of these videos quote-unquote "ironic"?''
Proteus: They're done to troll you. This guy's got hundreds of videos just to fuck with you.
Proteus: They're done to troll you. This guy's got hundreds of videos just to fuck with you.
Western Animation
"Hahahahahaha! ... It was a joke, right?!"
— Alan "the Brain" Powers, Arthur, "When Carl Met George"
Real Life
"The problem with irony and satire is the dumb motherfuckers don't get it."
— Ray Wylie Hubbard
"Try explaining Hitler to a kid."
— George Carlin, Brain Droppings
"It's a chillingly accurate documentary."
— George Takei on Galaxy Quest
"When, many years ago, I was given this book, I thought it was a satire. I learned later that it was the first work of a distinguished sociologist. Otherwise, when we look closely enough into a society, we know is not Utopia and its fair description runs the risk of border on satire."
— Jorge Luis Borges prologue of Thorstein Veblen's Theory Of The Leisure Class
"In hindsight, its very existence seems like a convicted psychopath’s final brain-shit as he fries in the electric chair, with Vanilla Ice, OJ Simpson, and Bronson Pinchot tightrope walking and balancing on one of those massive balls, while Whoopi Goldberg or Hulk Hogan act as ringmaster."
— Stuart Millard on Circus of the Stars, So Excited, So Scared
, So Excited, So Scared"Imagine if, in 1729, there had been a number of letters to the editor by various authors proposing that Irish children be exterminated and eaten. Imagine that laws of that nature were being seriously debated in Parliament, and that one of the parties had made it a part of their platform. While the laws were being regularly defeated, opponents still had to stand up and seriously debate why it was unethical to eat babies. Imagine that a candidate for prime minister actually solemnly suggested that we ought to at least consider the merits of eating Irish children.
In that context, Swift's essay would have fallen flat as a cowflop dropped from the Tower of London. His efforts to use straight-faced absurdity and hyperbole and satire to expose the lesser injustices of the time would not have succeeded at all. The invisible quotation marks would be undetectable, because there would have been a substantial background of equivalent proposals given in absolute seriousness."
In that context, Swift's essay would have fallen flat as a cowflop dropped from the Tower of London. His efforts to use straight-faced absurdity and hyperbole and satire to expose the lesser injustices of the time would not have succeeded at all. The invisible quotation marks would be undetectable, because there would have been a substantial background of equivalent proposals given in absolute seriousness."
— PZ Myers, "There is such a thing as bad satire"
""Most of the themes in my comic strip Dilbert involve workplace situations. I routinely include bizarre and unworldly elements such as talking animals, troll-like accountants, and employees turning into dishrags after the life-force has been drained from their bodies. And yet the comment I hear most often is: 'That's just like my company.'"
"... just in case there's anyone from the Mail On Sunday watching this, I was using an exaggerated form of the rhetoric and implied values of Top Gear to satirize the rhetoric and the implied values of Top Gear. And it is a shame to break character to explain that, but hopefully it will save you a long, tedious exchange of emails."
That was what the 'Sanctuary Districts' were, places where the homeless could [go] so no one had to see them, and literally there it was in the newspaper. We were a little freaked out.
— Robert Hewitt Wolfe on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, "Past Tense"
"Somebody's got to say it. The man is Ted Baxter."
"Ted Cruz is someone that when I was in English class, I wish there was a book, and in that book, he was a fictional senator."
"You can't debate satire. Either you get it or you don't."
"Funny how it's always 'The Simpsons predicted the future' and never 'We created ourselves a nightmare world beyond parody'."
— Kung Fu Monster D on Twitter
on Twitter"Language has always been important in politics, but language is incredibly important to the present political struggle. Because if you can establish an atmosphere in which information doesn't mean anything, then there is no objective reality. The first show we did, a year ago, was our thesis statement: What you wish to be true is all that matters, regardless of the facts. Of course, at the time, we thought we were being farcical."
"A characteristic feature of our time is that you cannot satirize it, because anything you come up with already exists, or is about five minutes from existing."
—Nathan J. Robinson, "Texas Republicans Discover the True Meaning of Free Markets", Current Affairs
, Current Affairs"To everybody that's congratulating me right now on my new Kid Rock parody video, let me clarify - that's not me. That's actually Kid Rock."
