Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Not funny "satire" news sites

This is topic Not funny "satire" news sites in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 01-02-2015, 02:13 AM:

The Onion used to do a great job of making funny news articles that were blatantly fake. In recent years it seems they have lost their touch by throwing in relentless cursing to help readers realize the stories are fake (and because apparently it's funny when a news article is nothing but cursing).

But lately it seems like the amount of "satire" news sites is really getting out of control, and what's sad is they aren't making the articles outrageous enough so that most of the general public seem to understand that it's a joke.

Am I alone here in this opinion, or are other people tiring of seeing these stupid news stories appear on facebook, in emails and so forth? They are nothing but click bait for advertising revenue and a total waste of time.

Here is a list I found on the internet. I doubt by any means it is a complete list:

Alternet.org
BeforeItsNews.com
Christwire.org
Chronicle.su
ConsciousLifeNews.com
CounterPsyOps.com
CSGlobal.com
DailyCurrant.com
DailyPaul.com
DCClothesline.com
DownTrend.com
Duffleblog.com
EagleRising.com
English.ruvr.ru
EUTimes.net
Examiner.com
FederalistPress.com
FreedomOutpost.com
FreePatriot.org
FromTheTrenchesWorldReport.com
GlobalResearch.ca
GonzoGlobe.com
GovtSlaves.com
GulagBound.com
GulagBound.com
HangTheBankers.com
HealthImpactNews.com
InfoWars.com
IntelliHub.com
InternetChronicle.su
ItMakesSenseBlog.com
LewRockwell.com
LibertyDigest.com
MrConservative.com
NationalReport.net
NaturalCuresNotMedicine.com
NaturalNews.com
Newsmax.com
PalookavillePost.com
PoliticalBlindSpot.com
PrisonPlanet.com
RandPaulReview.com
RealFarmacy.com
RedFlagNews.com
SouthWeb.org
TheCommonSenseShow.com
TheControversialFiles.net
TheDailySheeple.com
TheLastGreatStand.com
TheOnion.com
TheRightPlanet.com
TopInfoPost.com
UndergroundHealth.com
USAHitman.com
VeteransToday.com
VineOfLifeNews.com
WesternJournalism.com
WhyDontYouTryThis.com
WorldNewsDailyReport.com
WorldTruth.tv

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 01-02-2015, 05:57 AM:

IMHO, The Onion jumped the shark a few years ago, parody and satire usually works best without an in-your-face approach. Maybe they've realized this themselves, because they're apparently for sale as of last November.

I've checked a few of the sites above, but at least some of them don't really strike me as satirical, but rather more like a one-issue or propaganda news site. Some of them open popup windows and some of them even don't work anymore and I tried just a mere handful.

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 01-02-2015, 09:26 AM:

Not sure how all of those names got on as satire sites, unless it's because they sometimes run "humorous" stories.
The very first one, Alternet, is a liberallish site that is mostly a news aggregator which does a few stories on its own. As such, it runs political humor columns (Will Durst comes to mind) and plenty of click bait.
I suspect most of the sites on the list are also aggregators. Even if everyone were a full blown satire site like The Onion, it would still be pretty sparse given the size of the internet. As it is, the internet needs a whole lot more funny.
Odd the Funny or Die is not on the list.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-02-2015, 11:45 AM:

I agree about the Onion jumping the shark. They have fallen into the trap of just sticking in a bunch of profanity to make something read funnier -- which is great on a limited basis, but not so great when it's overused.

It sort of reminds of the little hillbilly girl in "Christmas Vacation." She says "Shittin' bricks" and Chevy Chase says, "You shouldn't say that word" and she says "Sorry....shittin' rocks." That's funny, but if the kid had cursed her way through the whole movie it would have diluted the humor.

They've become like SNL -- bits of genius surrounded by large piles of junk.

Posted by Jarod Reddig (Member # 6363) on 01-02-2015, 11:49 AM:

Exactly Mike. Nice SNL comparison.

I use to really love The Onion and me and my friends would always share stories and get a big kick out of it. It just sucks now. I don't even pay attention to such sites.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 01-02-2015, 12:54 PM:

If the old lady in Blazing Saddles said, "Up yours, N-word" one more time, it would have ruined the whole movie.

If Gene Wilder had said, "Blucher!" one more time... N-E-I-G-H!
It would have ruined the joke.

The secret to comedy-TIMING-is knowing when to STOP telling jokes.

There's a saying, "Third time is a charm."
The first time you hear a joke, it's funny.
The second time you hear a joke, you think, "Oh, there's that funny joke I heard."
The third time you hear the same joke, you think... "I've heard that one before."

Posted by Jarod Reddig (Member # 6363) on 01-02-2015, 01:05 PM:

Most agreed Randy [beer]

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 01-02-2015, 02:55 PM:

Hmmm... The Bad News Bears franchise comes to mind...

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 01-02-2015, 03:43 PM:

Many of the articles are indistinguishable from real news stories. It often takes fact checking to be sure they are not real stories. However, I do think it's hilarious when someone shares one of the stories in an outrage because the horrible thing is happening.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 01-02-2015, 04:29 PM:

It's really funny when a news organization, particularly a big cable TV news network, gets stung by running a story from The Onion as real news. They should know better since The Onion is pretty well known and has been around for, well, a lot longer than all those "me too" web sites.

While I have The Onion bookmarked, I don't look at it nearly as often as I did years ago.

quote: Martin McCaffery
Odd the Funny or Die is not on the list.

Funny Or Die isn't a fake news humor site. It just has all sorts of humorous articles, videos, animated GIFs, etc.

Cracked is one of my favorite humor sites. Their various list-based articles are often hilarious and eye opening. I really loved its examination of the Alien movies and the man-rape undertones in it.

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 01-02-2015, 04:57 PM:

Of course, we all could have just outgrown it.

Here's something I remember from High School. National Lampoon taking it to Mad Magazine for having lost its satirical edge:
Nat Lamp v Mad

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-02-2015, 07:08 PM:

quote: Martin McCaffery
Of course, we all could have just outgrown it.

That's true. I used to subscribe to Mad Magazine, and one year my wife gave me one of those CD sets that has all the issues on it. While a lot of it is still funny, I can't believe I thought some of that stuff was hilarious. (I still love the "43-Man Squamish" article though!)

I also still like "Nixon was the one in '68...he'll be a BIGGER one in '72!"

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 01-02-2015, 07:48 PM:

The Onion has always had cussin'. Not sure if it's increased or not lately, but I know one of their best headlines ever was "Holy Fucking Shit! Man Walks on the Fucking Moon!!" and that was nearly a decade ago if not more (it was actually in their print edition). But with the other "satire" sites like the ones Brad listed, humor seems to be a concept they don't fully understand. They seem to be more about tricking people. I can't even count the amount of times someone posts an article from one of those sites thinking it's true. There's no attempt at humor in the headlines or the article whereas The Onion makes it pretty obvious. Haven't read The Onion lately, however.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 01-02-2015, 07:53 PM:

I subscribed to Mad when I was a kid. Moving around from one military base to another made maintaining subscriptions a pain, but I managed to buy issues regularly up into my 20's. In later years it was about buying the issues more for the artwork. Some really amazing talent has worked at Mad over the years.

quote: Joe Redifer
The Onion has always had cussin'. Not sure if it's increased or not lately, but I know one of their best headlines ever was "Holy Fucking Shit! Man Walks on the Fucking Moon!!" and that was nearly a decade ago if not more (it was actually in their print edition).

Perhaps my favorite profanity laden bit from The Onion was this video news piece about Sony releasing a new piece of shit that doesn't fucking work. I still laugh at that piece. I really like the bit at the end where the spokesman is clicking the remote repeatedly, saying "fuck" louder and louder in exasperation.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 01-03-2015, 02:37 PM:

That one's a classic! I love the dude in front of Best Buy "I love bullshit like this. I'll buy anything I see in an ad."

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 01-03-2015, 02:50 PM:

In re-watching the Sony link above, I still think it would be funnier if they removed about 75% of the curse words to make it more realistic, but throw one in on occasion to help clarify that it's not a real news story.

For example the poster "just buy this shit" is funny, and wouldn't have been as funny without the curse word, but having every single person that speaks curse a couple times a sentence is just overdoing the joke.

Honestly I still say THIS video is the best one The Onion has ever produced. They really put forth the effort to make it look real and the casting was spot on, but you will notice it isn't lined with curse words and that made it funnier.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-03-2015, 03:07 PM:

quote: Joe Redifer
The Onion has always had cussin'. Not sure if it's increased or not lately, but I know one of their best headlines ever was "Holy Fucking Shit! Man Walks on the Fucking Moon!!" and that was nearly a decade ago if not more (it was actually in their print edition).

I agree, that was a classic. I almost bought one of those huge hardcover books just to get a copy of that but then changed my mind in a fit of being frugal.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 01-03-2015, 03:41 PM:

Spy vs Spy (Mad Magazine Joke and Dagger Dept.) is one of my all-time favourite comics. I have the book.

Among the most technically impressive games on the Commodore 64 were the three Spy vs Spy games: Spy vs Spy, The Island Caper, and Arctic Antics. And thanks to the magic of vice, I can still play them whenever I want to.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 01-03-2015, 05:18 PM:

quote: Brad Miller
Honestly I still say THIS video is the best one The Onion has ever produced. They really put forth the effort to make it look real and the casting was spot on, but you will notice it isn't lined with curse words and that made it funnier.

Funnier? It made it scarier! That could have been true...there are people that would buy just about anything Apple makes and justify stupid stuff as "progress." Then again, it was Windows with 8 that actually tried to do away with the keyboard on a laptop!

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-03-2015, 06:01 PM:

I just watched the Sony clip Brad referenced and I have to agree, it would have been funny with maybe half of the cursing left out.

I watched a few other Onion videos while I was at it, and the most annoying thing was not the cursing, but having to suffer thru 5 seconds of the exact same lame ad before each video started.

Posted by James Westbrook (Member # 3690) on 01-03-2015, 10:02 PM:

I recall, fondly, the classic National Lampoon's Sunday Newspaper edition which came out in the late 70s or early 80s. I read it cover to cover. I gave it to a co-worker in the mid 80s which inspired him to subscribe to the magazine, which unfortunately for him started getting lame about that time.
Their True section, which consisted of reader submitted articles from local newspapers, and pictures, became the inspiration of similar themed websites 30 years later.