An online satire site has today received its one-millionth comment along the lines of ‘this is not satire’, after it was posted on the site’s Facebook page.
Semi-popular spoof news website FactWallop frequently attracts comments deriding it for reporting the news instead of being satirical; a lamentable occurrence that editor Simon Williams attributes to the woeful current state of politics.
“To be honest, that particular criticism does hurt a bit,” he told the bloke next to him in the pub down the road from his house.
“Especially when we put a whole five minutes’ worth of effort into a piece. Some of the writers have even been known to devote a full ten minutes to an article. That’s a proper dedication to the craft.
“And then for people to sarcastically say ‘I thought this was supposed to be satire’ or ‘took me a while to realise this was FactWallop’, well, it does make us wonder why we bother. It’s certainly not for the money.”
Taking a sip from his pint he concluded, “I blame the news for being so batshit crazy every single day.
“How are we supposed to have a satirical angle on something when the exaggerated example that we come up with often becomes actual legislation the next day? Predicting the future with satirical articles was funny the first few times it happened, now it’s just alarming.”
Simon then got up and strolled out of the pub, leaving the bloke at the bar to mutter to himself, “Well that was depressing. I thought he was supposed to be funny…”
