"Satire and Parody in the age of Facebook Feeds" (OR) "RAGE CLICK THIS"

You, generating traffic for a website.

Practically unknown satire "news site" The National Report recently posted an article describing a "Gay-to-Straight" program that was supposedly going to be enacted in Arizona schools starting November 1st. Front and center is a picture of Jan Brewer, the oft maligned, mummified matron of malice. If you didn't see the article, it's right here. Before we begin, all the quoted sections are actual responses to the article, either from the sites comments page, blog repostings, or various Facebook links.

"What?! This can't be real."

"Is this real? Someone please tell me this isn't a real thing because I'm a two seconds away from CAUSING A SCENE SOMEWHERE"

No, it's not.  You were ready to believe it, though, which is the crux of this post.

We are all pretty familiar with The Onion at this point, or so I'd like to hope. The Onion bills itself as "America's Finest New Source" and publishes articles about Studys discovering people far away are not actually smaller, and (my personal favorite of all time) Scientists studying effects of weightlessness on mortal terror. The Onion is consistently hilarious, presenting mundane day-to-day events as world shattering news or positing a ridiculous, World Weekly News worthy alternate present.  It's satire is heavy-handed and obvious, which means that if one of your friends believes an article on The Onion, you should definately sell that shmuck a snipe-hunting kit or Atlantean Vacation. The Onion is entertainment, but is it really satire?

Unlike "irony," satire is something most people understand.  It's purpose is to use humor to enact social or political change through tools like exaggeration, to correct behavior with a snide dagger. Satire is an often necessary tool for social change, as it allows us to hamstring mighty subjects and figures and discourage others from following their lead. By this definition, The Onion isn't really satire- it's really a parody of news media in general. Parody imitates works of art or literature, and the Onion is a parody of the news as a form.

Now to the part about The National Report.

The article in question suggests that the Gay-to-Straight program is a brainchild of Dean Huls (which incidentally, is an anagram for "Held Anus"), who supposedly works for "People Can Change." Dean isn't real, but "People Can Change" is, and here is there mission statement.

Facing the reality that you have unwanted homosexual feelings can cause tremendous turmoil - especially if those feelings conflict with deeply held values, beliefs and life goals. We know what it's like. We've been there.

But there is another way out. A path that led us to resolve rather than fight homosexual feelings. A path to authentic brotherhood. And to our innate heterosexual masculinity.

Hey sailor. Want to autheticlly fulfill my surrendered masculinity?

I know, what awesome guys they are.  They have a program called a M.A.N.S. Journey, which stands for Masculinity, Authenticity, Need Fulfillment and Surrender. Other than the fact that the acronym would be totally better as MANiFeSt (That one's free, conversion camp psychos), the idea of Masculinity needing fulfillment with authentic surrender is, well, pretty gay. Actually, MANFeST might be an even better acronym.

So National Report caused such a stir that "People Can Change" (probably called that since "People Really Inevitably Change Seriously" was too earnest, and the acronym PRICS was taken) had to actually post a response on their home-page. (Bold is their emphasis, underline is mine)

The satirical website National Report has issued a FAKE news story alleging that People Can Change programs have been adopted by Arizona public schools. Its own disclaimer admits, "All news articles contained within National Report are fiction, and presumably fake news."

In fact, the spokesperson is fake, the interview is fake, the photo with Arizona Governor Jan Brewer is fake, the press conference is fake -- and the quotes are fake, rude, and demeaning of gays.

This satire is not reflective of our organizational values, including compassion, understanding and respect for all who deal with or have ever dealt with homosexuality, however they may choose to address it in their lives. (See Mission and Philosophy.)

People Can Change does not provide programs or services for minors. We are a peer-led support organization of men who have personally experienced significant change from unwanted same-sex attractions ourselves and who now share our experience and give support to other adults who voluntarily seek similar change.

Right, because gay-to-straight programs AREN'T demeaning of gays.

A lot of blogs reposted the National Report article as gospel, and many have had to redact and explain, "No, Crazyland isn't doing that." Seriously, they call Arizona "Crazyland." We're getting to the good part now.

The National Report isn't just satirizing Jan Brewer and Joe Arpaio in this article, it's successfully satirized an entire audience. Many Americans have become detached from reading the news in general, and most of the stories they see are hand-picked by their friends list and spread across social media. The Facebook New Posts Feed is the new News Feed, or perhaps the new Post-News News Feed, to put it alliteratively. We are constantly besieged by articles that play to our exact interests.  I, for one, am guilty of reading all manner of "OMG the gov't is crazy" and "look happy non-cis folk" articles because that's what my friends share. It plays to my preconceptions, desires, and outlook on life. I'm essentially the same as a guy ignoring front page war horror stories to read the sports page. We all are.

The satire that National Report has pulled off, intentionally or not, is that it has played to our preconceptions of Arizona as "Crazyland," of Jan Brewer as some kind of liverspotted cacodaemon, and as the whole of America being pretty shitty to homosexuals and children in general.  None of those things are false (especially the cacodaemon part), but we're all too ready to believe that this outcome is possible. Look at some of these responses:

"That lady Is sick Jan Brewer needs help She probably has gay family members , no one can change who they are I totally disagree with this!!!"

"How about you teach your shitty-ass kids not to bully people for being gay. How about that. Wow that sure would solve the bullying problem instead of trying to fix what isn’t broken."

"This is just insane. Are we going back into the 1950′s era ignorance? Most sex offenders are heterosexual males. I would really like to see where they are getting their facts from…..like a valid site with the facts..not propaganda."

"This is terrifying is so many ways!!  Nobody has the right to tell anyone else what they are supposed to be or how they are supposed to feel. Wow, I sure hope this doesn't pass! "

Not the "eating babies" I meant, Google Image Search.

Perhaps the most telling result of this article, other than everyone we know is more gullible than we thought, is that everyone is basically a self-righteous lunatic. Sure, straight-to-gay programs for children is a pretty rage-inducing idea, and is easily as bad as eating babies.We want to believe we are on the side of good, and that our enemies are psychotic evil bat-people who drink brains and eat blood-diamonds. The satire here is that we believe everything we read, as long as we are prone to believe it or are due for a paladin-armored rage at the world we hate.

Seriously though; gay-to-straight programs in public schools? How did anyone read the fake Arpaio quote and continue to believe this was real:

Less gays in our jails makes for a smoother running prison system. There will be no more prancing around along with all the other gay activities that homosexuals like to do.

Okay, that does kind of sound like him, I'll admit it. Despite everything I've said above, I now come to the original idea I wanted to posit: "Rage Clicking."

In the end, satire, parody, hoax, or simply humor in bad taste, the National Report generated a lot of traffic for their site with one article.  It Bonsai Kitten'd a demographic of people who perceive themselves as well-informed, hip, and up-to-date, and probably generated a significant number of page views.  If they had advertisers, the traffic generated by "rage clicks" would have been pretty good.  It posits an idea that most online news providers (I'm looking at you, Huff Post) probably figured out a while back: people want to be insanely angry, and will happily view advertising for the chance to have an aneurysm.

Yeah, that's right. I just created a new form of marketing. You're welcome, marketing executives- who I choose to imagine are all white, rich, wear suits, do cocaine and masturbate to "Mad Men" because it makes them easier to hate. So, National Report's article: brilliant satire, humor in poor taste, or marketing ploy? Let me know.



photo credit: Reid Rosenberg via photopin cc