I can no longer tell if this is satire!

[Louise57]

www.theonion.com/it-is-journalism-s-sacred-duty-to-endanger-the-lives-of-1850126997

In this world today its impossible to tell what is satire and what isn't.

This is the Onion being satirical as always, but taking a stand against the NYT for daring to show some journalistic integrity and refusing to bow to extremists who want editorial control over their journalism.

The Onion is participating in trans activism, effectively.

Unfortunately some of the previously edgy, funny satire sites like The onion are totally captured. The Daily Mash is the same.

It is cry of desperation by those who consider themselves the opinion makers and it is pathetically unfunny because The Trans Genocide is what they are left with. I'd say that this is a defining moment in the culture war. When you stop being funny as you mock your enemy, you lose.

Yeah, the problem is that trans activism itself is so hyperbolic, melodramatic (genocide, really?), disingenuous and anti-fact that "humorously" accusing the gender critical/trans-sceptical side of those traits just makes them look... a bit desperate and not very clever.

'You're fixated on genitals!!' I think when statistically 1 in 5 women have been raped, and the rest of us have been sexually assaulted by the people with the penises, and when the people with the penises commit 99% of sex crime, and when you've taken away the name we use for the people with penises, it's understandable that there might be some mention of worry about the people with penises going wherever they damn well want, and the people with vaginas being expected to shut the fuck up and do as they're told. But it's all so progressive!

It was so bad that I had to check it wasn’t a rip-off of the Onion, a site I never found laugh-out-loud hilarious in the first place.

The bit about making stories up, for example, has no satirical bite because I’m not aware of this as a phenomenon in reporting on this issue. As for the obsession with genitals, if you insist over and over again that it’s reasonable for the two sexes to share hospital wards, prison cells and so on, you’re going to hear about genitalia from people who aren’t keen on the idea. Since that’s kind of why they aren’t keen.

After reading some of the comments on the NYT piece, though, it’s hard not to feel yourself going mad. When any objection is rejected outright as transphobia, no matter how measured and careful, where do you go?

Of course this article was intended to be satire.

Unfortunately, iIt just isn’t funny. Like a whole raft of modern comedians who seemed to have failed to understand that righteous, moralistic lecturing is not the same thing as humour.

PP was right. That article is blatant TRA propaganda.

I was surprised by how much this shocked me as in the past when The Onion has used its platform to make a political point it can be very sobering and effective (school shootings, 9/11 are the obvious ones).

With each sentence as it became obvious this wasn't a joke it became more offensive. And being signed by the editorial board (was it?) at the end sealed the deal - women, shut up.

Any media outlet literally standing for no debate on is unacceptable. I'll assume there are trans people on the staff steering this particular ship, and this is aimed more at right wing bogeymen rather than ordinary women, but it's that lack of thought or care for other perspectives that speaks volumes.

Don't get me started on the stupid people actually praising them for it on social media.

As for ‘obsession’ with genitals, TRAs love this argument. It’s feeds right into their misogynistic agenda as its basically aiming to to sexually shame and ridicule women who want to assert their right to basic boundaries.

After reading some of the comments on the NYT piece, though, it’s hard not to feel yourself going mad. When any objection is rejected outright as transphobia, no matter how measured and careful, where do you go?

Very much this, Anti. The concepts of journalistic integrity, libel and defamation, due process, even what transphobia is are all completely lost on the Twitter mob. And there is seemingly no consequence for this ignorance - see how they have lionised that nasty piece of work who had to apologise to JKR, how they all repeat this preposterous 'blood on your hands' insult to women over the murder of Brianna Ghey. It's all so inexcusably stupid and wrong - it does feel like going mad.

That pious little paragraph about previous work to endanger the lives of various groups including ‘women’ is particularly enraging.

There are no women in their world. When you’ve destabilised a category of anything to the point it has no defining characteristics, no coherent means of understanding who or what is in the category or not, it ceases to exist. You simply cannot assert self-ID TWAW and claim you have a position, any position, on ‘women’ because there is no longer such a thing as women.

When I was young, "right-wing" satire and comedy used not to be very funny, because if you're trying to target people who are more open-minded and less hypocritical, it's hard to get a grip. And such comedy would have to stay within the permitted constraints for their group.

But now there's been a complete reversal, because it's the so-called "left" who are more incredibly closed-minded and hypocritical, so there IS a lot in what they're up to to mock. And then "left-wing" comedy is trying to stay within incredibly tight ideological constraints.

What I've realised is that this isn't a left-versus-right thing, it's an authoritarian versus anti-authoritarian thing. The anti-authoritarian side can be funny - the authoritarian one can't. And clearly the Onion is trying to align itself with the authoritarian side.

At least some things have remained true to themselves over the same period - I think of South Park in particular. But that never made the mistake of being on a "left" or "right" side - it was always just skewered everyone. The Onion tried to skewer everyone but was always obviously lefty - Babylon Bee was the unfunny right-wing version. But it's now a lot funnier. And the Onion is trapped trying to defend nonsense.

Orange, yes, there are out and out strawmen in the NYT replies (JKR apparently says the existence of tW threatens women - don’t recall that), the failure to distinguish GC views from common or garden bigotry complete with gotcha comparisons to racism and homophobia, as well as the mulish insistence that simply holding any view contrary to the orthodoxy is proof of transphobia and so must not be engaged with lest we are to endanger lives. All of it absolutely infuriating.

And all of it neatly served up to us in the Onion piece.

(Did the Onion also get in the bit about how women’s rights are just a dog whistle? I admit to skimming it after a while... It’s a rock solid argument after all, since we all know that nobody is really that bothered about women.)

I forgot The Onion existed.

Having read that I'm going to continue to have forgotten about them.

It’s a weird spiteful article. Don’t make sense as something even trying to be funny - it’s got too much vitriol in it.

That’s so depressing. The Onion are obviously captured too. Hence not being pertinent, thought-provoking or funny anymore.

It’s so tiresome to be lectured by pompous people who think they are irreverently sending up the kinds of people who like to lecture.

Is it actually possible to be funny and woke at the same time? Is it possible to be faithful to an ideology and satirical at the same time?

It doesn’t seem so.

There's some interesting tweets about this article

Good on you Spero for that.

I used to love The Onion. When comedy got cancelled it just became drab self flagellation religion.
This is my favourite ever Onion article from the good olde days, still makes me laugh now.

www.theonion.com/fuck-everything-were-doing-five-blades-1819584036

Read that have a laugh and then compare it to the article in the OP :(

I agree it’s a weird and spiteful article that actually reinforces so many problematic myths and, in doing so, makes it much harder for those trying to properly investigate the very important questions about the medical and pharmaceutical industries, the effects on young people, and such like.

This sort of thing is perpetuating the TRA genocide narrative and laying the blame at the door of anyone who asks questions. It’s not incisive satire; it’s more dangerous silencing.

Even worse when they’ve abused the concept of free speech several times in an article that is clearly designed to prevent people from raising concerns.

Depressing.

That was funny. I used to love the silly headlines too “scientist dies in think tank”, “sculptor accused of turning women into objects”, “family where all members claim to be the black sheep”…

You got the feeling that they were wetting themselves laughing while they were writing it. I used to literally lol reading it, embarrassing myself. This one in the OP is so dull and joyless.

@EndlessTea
They cancelled comedy. A real shame, laughter is good for the soul.

The problem is that virtue signalling and reality denying actually don’t combine well with satire.

The purpose of satire is to expose the ridiculousness of that stuff (just as it exposes the hubris of government and such like).

So when you try to do them as satire, you get a bloody mess that tries to occlude rather than expose.

The ‘left’ should be willing to laugh at itself as much as it’s willing to laugh at the (highly moralised) positions it wants to promote.

‘His transition was supported by one of his unmarried teachers, who is not a virgin’
‘What if doctors are climbing through windows to suture penises to sleeping cheerleaders?

This piece would never have been written by a woman as several sentences, such as above, just come across so strongly as a misogynistic man/men. Even if it’s really trying to be satire.

I watched a good crime series recently and to investigate a case they did literary forensics on a nasty anonymous article. I was immediately reminded of this when I thought how vitriolic and unfunny piece was. On the show it was all about the use of an Oxford comma. This piece is far less subtle.

Sorry I should have said ‘disputed author’ rather than anonymous.

Cringeworthy