How to Fix the Satire Problem
I was doom-scrolling on Instagram the other day, as one does in these unprecedented times. You know, taking in the contradictory views of the doom and accepting them as fact, contradictions and cognitive dissonance be damned. I came across a story wherein someone shared a headline from a popular satire site (no, not that one, the less funny one) and believed it to be accurate. If that weren’t bad enough, this person had to have someone else correct their error. What is the world coming to?
Anyhow, despite my strong affinity for free speech, free expression, and freedom, the likes of which only the United States has, I came to a conclusion that some of you might not like. Nevertheless, you’d be incorrect with your hate and your disdain. So what conclusion did I reach? It’s pretty apparent: satire needs to be banned. Censored, if you will.
The first question you likely have for me at this point is, “Why should satire be banned?” The second question is, “Have you lost your goddamn mind, you stupid son of a bitch?”
I’ll answer the second question first since it’s brief. No, my mind is quite intact, thanks for asking.
The first reason for banning all satire stems from the impetus of this thought. If an influencer who happens to present themselves in front of a vast population of deep thinking denizens of the internet can be so deftly deceived, are any of the rest of us safe from such deception?
Adding to it, the “about” sections of many websites often lurk beneath the lede of their flashy graphics and funny quips. Do you expect a person with less than a thousand followers to concern themselves with digging around a website to find some sort of disclaimer? You’d have a better chance of cooking spam with Jesus Christ.
Not only that, but I’m autistic. And there are many like me. Some of my fellow autistic brethren, sistren, and theythren have varying degrees of support that they need. Some have high support needs; some have low support needs. My support needs are pretty low, but I still have trouble with certain things, like humor and taking things literally. When I was a kid and my grandma said that it was raining cats and dogs outside, I looked out the window without hesitating. When I saw no cats and dogs, I was confused. How can a satire writer expect me to know what hyperbole even is? How can I expect to figure that sort of thing out on my own? I can’t have the writer do it because they’re drunk or wallowing in self-loathing somewhere, too busy for me. Ergo, the satire ban.
Enough about me. I realize the autistics and I are but a small portion of the population at large, and asking people to cater to us in small ways can be a massive inconvenience for a neurotypical person. And I can’t deal with putting that burden on you, so I’ll ask you to repeat things and ask tons of clarifying questions while you change nothing about your communication style. It’s fine.
But what about the rest of you? We’re living in an age where information is abundant. You have the internet, courtesy of a young DC-born boy named Al Gore, who would spend his time farming tobacco in Tennessee during the summer off from his affluent school in a unique and inspiring American rags to riches story. So yeah, you have the knowledge of the world at your fingertips. And cat videos. And young teens and college kids frothing at the mouth to cancel other people for any and everything ranging from inane oversights to horrific and egregious actions. With that happening in the world and people believing what others tell them to think, without the wherewithal to look into anything indicative of a bigger picture or an alternative (but sound) opinion, how can we expect satire to work? It’s not rhetorical because we can’t. If it isn’t on a spoon and you’re not shoving it in my face and praising me, I won’t understand anything.
On top of all this ableism, I haven’t gotten to the second half of my argument. Not only is satire ableist, but it’s also classist. I grew up in a garage in the southern region of the United States. Down there, a garage was what you’d typically think of, that is, a car hole. But we also referred to free-standing edifices on a piece of property as a garage. Usually, it was made of cinder blocks, and you used it as a workspace. This garage was in my grandparent’s yard next to their double-wide trailer, which housed not only my grandparents but some of their children. Dad and I had no rooms beyond a living room, a bathroom, and a kitchen. If this garage were attached to many others and stacked sky-high, it would cost $2000/month (+- $500, depending on the metropolis you’re in). So, that’s where I grew up, my father on the left side of the garage, a couch, and then my bunk bed. And we had a television in the middle facing the sofa.
Everyone’s poor experience will vary, but a few things hold true for us all. For one thing, food is important. Knowing where you’re going to eat next and when you’re going to eat is a challenge. And clothes. Sometimes acquiring them can be challenging. If we’re going to school and some dickhead kid living in the suburbs wants to talk shit about your knockoff JNCOs, do you think the poor will care about nerdy nonsense like comma splices and parts of speech? Of course not. There’s better stuff to worry about, dork.
But when a poor neurodivergent kid grows up, sometimes the poor part won’t stick. And that’s a good thing, and I’m glad when it happens. But the problem is they might have to spend years figuring out things they missed due to surviving at the base level. The scars we carry from that are still there, and we’re trying to heal them now. We sure as hell don’t have time to read satire because some of us might have figured out what a metaphor was yesterday. The better alternative is simply not putting it out in an already confusing world.
The overall point here is that you can’t expect me or anyone else to think. You’re lucky if we read beyond a headline. So you have to cater to me, and you ought to expect to do so. And to that end, you can’t expect me to cross-reference or ask questions. If I ask questions, am I doing it to be a malicious asshole? Or am I genuine? You sure as hell won’t know, but you’ll tell me which of the two fits. If we’re being honest, I can’t handle those kinds of assumptions. So it’s better to stay silent even if I’m woefully ignorant about something. And even if I did manage to ask a question, what if it’s the wrong question? What if I get canceled? It’s hard. And if something is hard, it’s not worth doing.
The lesson, then, is “never try.”
