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Economy of Errors
While parody sites draw their subject matter from whatever their creators find worthy of skewering, the most famous obvious comparison (The Onion) is basically a general news source, for a certain value of "news." The stories in Economy of Errors are (you guessed it) more about the Nu-Economy, and swipes at the buzzword laden, sense-deprived world of corporate idiocy and technological myopia -- the world of new startups, old-line companies pretending to be startups, last-year's startups pretending to be old-line companies and so on, not to mention dangerous "Click Houses" cropping up in the suburbs.
After I grinned, I started chuckling, then really laughing. "CDNow Wins Patent for Loss-Based Revenue Model." "Manufacturers' Lobby Says Small Children Defective.""Yahoo! beats Analysts' Estimates, Dogs."
I particular enjoyed the piece titled "Judge Denies Bias Against 'Guilty Microsoft Bastards,'" which quotes Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson explaining that his rulings in the Microsoft trial over which he presided were fair, and that he was never biased against "those guilty, lying bastards." Or, pick your poison, "Microsoft Says Linux Has No Future, So Linux Firms Will Stop." Say, these headlines are probably good for another 3 to 5 years at least!
Without giving away too much, I think you can safely read these headlines, too:
- "House Sends Spam Bill to Senate; Senate Spam Filter Deletes It"
- "Shooting at Virtual Office Leaves 3 as Good as Dead, 6 Tantamount to Wounded"
- "Cubists Launch Unnavigable Web Site"
And of course, you can read these pieces on the SatireWire site as well, if you'd like too much to be given away anyhow.
Besides the stories (of which the full pagers ike "New HP Chief Can do Straddle Jump," seem to me much funnier than the shorter disinfo-blurb scattered throughout), there are a hefty selection of ads, most of which stick close enough to seeming real that I'd love to see a few scattered into a real business publication, just to see how many people notice. The spread on pages 88-89 of ads for various online trading companies certainly makes me laugh, or at least makes my face settle into a disturbing rictus. ("Thanks to Ameritrade, I quit my job as a bartender and bought that French villa I always wanted.") Maybe this is because I'm in that select group of people with a few handfuls of options on stock that costs far less than my special discounted strike price.
There are a few flat spots. For one thing, some of the parody ads no longer seem like parody, though this is hardly Marlatt's fault. (One ad shows the standard grey wash of newspaper stock listings, with enough stocks bolded to outline the familiar Absolut bottle shape, and says that the reason stocks will never fall is "Absolut Denial." Suddenly, too late -- it's like a mock gravestone for a living person, when the target suddenly drops dead.)
The same is true of two stories about the crisis that went away quietly, the Y2K bug. I wished as I was reading "Y2K survivors Devolve Ahead of Schedule" (about pre-survivors who started watching cannibalism tapes early) that each story was marked with a "first run on" date to establish more context. The undated story about the trend started by Microsoft Bob could use some context too, for when our children one day ask us seriously "What was Microsoft Bob?"
A few of the stories and ads in the book just didn't make me laugh, and small number didn't even stir a chuckle. Things like the full-pager for FamilyFetch.com ("Rent a life. Virtual Family in under an hour. Guaranteed.") seemed to take up valuable reading space, but didn't turn me on. YMMV.
On the other hand, both in the book and on the site, Marlatt makes a few forays into irreverent cultural and religious humor which may infuriate the culturally sensitive and leave those who would like to be culturally sensitive scratching their heads, not sure if they're allowed to laugh or not. I found myself in that second boat, but mostly laughed anyhow. Does anyone take real offense at a story suggesting that "Judiasm may be Y2K solution" because of the offset in years of the Jewish calendar versus the western one?
An impossible request for Marlatt when the next compilation comes out (as I'm sure it will) -- please include an index! Trying to look for an example of possibly offensive story, it would have been much faster to look for the word "Hinjew" in an index, but I think that story was too late to make the book, and is instead only on the site.
Now, I admit it -- I usually can't stand humor sites, because when they're not funny (to humor-impaired me), they're really not funny. There's no accounting for taste, which goes double for humor. This book, though, has spurred me to finally bookmark SatireWire and forced me to hand the book over temporarily to friends and family members prompted by my maniacal laughter to ask what I was reading. I look forward to the next round.
You can purchase Economy of Errors from bn.com, or from the SatireWire site. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
are you sure about this? i was never under the impression that satirewire was this focused. consider these headlines:
- POLICE MUST NOTIFY RESIDENTS WHEN CATHOLIC CHURCH MOVES INTO NEIGHBORHOOD
- HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS DEMAND WARS IN EASIER-TO-FIND COUNTRIES
- AUSTRALIA GETS DRUNK, WAKES UP IN NORTH ATLANTIC
maybe i'm being dense but i fail to see how any of these are related to fortune, forbes, cio, or adbusters.--
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Actually, I've seen a couple of the SatireWire stories appear in the National Post here in Canada. They really succeed quite well in this format! The National Post is one of Canada's two main national daily's, but it is written with more of the style and humour of a British broadsheet paper. Perhaps this is down to the Telegraph tie-in via Conrad Black.
The SatireWire web site might not be subtle like all good satire, but it's stories are good, and this especially obvious when taken out of context. The context of the story doesn't have to be subtle: take for example classic programmes I used to watch on British TV such as Drop the Dead Donkey - I know the programme is satirical, but that doesn't make is less amusing.
Finally, don't forget we're talking about the USA. Mr. Bean isn't considered simplistic and childish humour by most people. This is the country where popular satire has to be presented as a cartoon (The Simpsons) before it will have mass acceptance. The British/Australian/even Canadian/etc sense of humour normally produces blank stares from Americans who just don't think the same way. Humour has to be like all other things American to be accepted en masse: unsubtle.
use The Onion as a perfect example to fellow Englishmen who claim that America doesn't understand irony, that American humo[u]r isn't funny
Blackadder:Baldrick, do you know what irony is?
Baldrick: Yeah. It's like...goldy, and bronzy...it's just made of iron.
I agree. I hate the body of american humor. Seinfeld wasn't bad and News Radio was fantastic, but most of it I can't stand. Give me Blackadder or the young ones any old day.
That being said...I hate bean with a passion. It's self-indulgent and yes, childish. I find it just as bad as most american popular humor, possibly a shade worse. Woody Allen once said that the thing that makes humor funny is the inherent truth to it. Humor is realising what's wrong with the world and ribbing on it to call attention to it and to lighten the burden. You should listen to some of his old stand-up routines. He, Mort Sahl and Chris Rock took social commentary to new levels. Just a suggestion, YMMV.
Triv
Slow down, boy.
.. which somewhat jarrs your mind out of the 'alternate universe' parody stories presumably take place in.) While The Onion's concepts are generally not as outright funny as Satire Wire's, nor potentially as laugh-out-loud funny as Sean, the actual quality of the writing and the authenticity of the tone found in The Onion is what will forever sell its parody to me.
Sean is not satire. He seems to write his opinions. He editorializes. In that respect, while his opinions and jokes can be funny, his targets tend to be somewhat obvious and easy to ridicule. Since he doesn't have to deal with the ramifications and implications of his opinions, he's pretty safe. Again, his writing can be very funny, but his opinions are the 'easy to make' flavour; mostly self-serving and generally glib. Y'know, spill a little blood, caveat emptor, that kind of take on the world. Make fun of those who've already lost. Whatever. I'm not arguing against his opinions - I'm only saying that its infinately easier to scrawl hilarious but ultimately substanceless diatribes than to parody something with a straight face and still get a point across. Sean can be funny, but he has a luxury of freedom with regard to the format of his site that The Onion and Satire Wire do not have.
The Onion is satire. Their goal is to parody truths in life by writing satirical articles in an understated and dead-pan fashion. Their research and authenticity as it relates to the subculture they are parodying in any given article is second to none, in my opinion. (I find SatireWire has great concepts, or head-lines, but the writing itself is a little too self-aware and not always up to snuff with the tone you generally find in a newspaper
You disagree, but thats okay. No need to try and poke fun at me for dissecting these sites. I simply like to consider the 'difficulty level' of a comedic goal before I declare who's come closest to reaching it.
"Old man yells at systemd"