I've struggled to name this for awhile. I like Poe's Law
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law>. And I'm fond of Franzén's argument
<https://web.archive.org/web/20060430164022/http://www.sm.luth.se/~torkel/eget/net.html>. cf
"Many posters have a weakness for what they take to be hard-hitting irony or sarcasm. In
response to such, never dispute or protest, but simply pretend to take their statement at face value.
... The heavier the intended irony or sarcasm, the more anxious its author will be to have it
understood that he is being ironic or sarcastic, and after some grumbling about people's limited
appreciation of irony or sarcasm, he will resume the argument, his intended knock-out blow having
been rendered ineffective."
But I [cough] *resonate¹ with* this sentence from
https://comedyphilosopher.com/post-irony-loop-mechanics-and-the-collapse-of-modern-satire/:
"We’re living in an era where the nuance of a punchline is being flattened by
literalism and moral panic, leaving us with nothing but a hollow, humorless digital
void."
My first candidate has been "degenerate satire". But I think "satire collapse"
might be better. Poe's Law is, then, a member of the larger class, a type of satire collapse. Bad
Faith enters, yet again. When someone like Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones, or Stephen Colbert adopts a
persona for long enough, they run the risk of inhabiting it. Colbert is competent. So his risk was
minimal. But Jones seems to have gotten totally lost. I'm not sure about Carlson.
Are we "genuinely terrified of being misunderstood, while the platforms we use reward the most
literal, bad-faith interpretations of every joke, leading many to wonder if we are witnessing the
permanent end of subtext"? Torkel, long dead now², exploited this fear amongst the Usenet snark,
weaponized misunderstanding. My personal answer is obviously No, because nobody ever understands
anyone anyway. So Do your worst! I say. Misunderstand me to your heart's content. >8^D "I am
not afraid!"³
[1]
https://satire.info/the-ministry-of-truthiness-satirical-journalism-and-the-death-of-objectivity/
cf "truthiness - the quality of preferring concepts one wishes to be true over
those supported by facts".
[2] https://fomarchive.ugent.be/2006-April/010463.html, also
https://resources.illc.uva.nl/LogicList/newsitem.php?id=7645
[3] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Ox3WxH103pA
On 3/25/26 2:06 PM, glen wrote:
Like the best satire, it can be difficult to tell whether or not it *is* satire.
On 3/25/26 12:24 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
And by the way, do you know what malus means in Latin: Apple. Are these folks
planning to conquer the earth? Nick
--
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