#Policy Satire

[mycolourfullworld]

[canadianabroadvery]

[frostedcupcakesftw]

i think one of the biggest issues i have with south park as a media with an effect on society /how dudebros talk about it is that they conflate being centrist and satire with being apolitical, and thus think the messaging and politics of it is above criticism because "it's not a show about politics its making FUN of politics" when like. no. centrisim is a political policy it's a political stance that can be criticized. South park isn't an apolitical show it's STEEPED in politics and it's messaging, even and ESPECIALLY as satire, is political in topic and nature.

[satireinfo]

Trump to Inherit World War Three

Trump to Inherit WW3 Biden’s Diplomatic Dilemma and the Misfire Heard Around the World Washington, D.C. — Where the Only Thing More Explosive Than Policy Is a Tweet In what can only be described as the most surprising diplomatic move since the invention of the “sudden diplomatic pivot,” President Joe Biden has inadvertently set the stage for World War III. With a strategic blunder so spectacular,…

[kesarijournal]

The Great Australian House Rush: How We're Turning Medium-Sized Cities into the New Sydney Minus the Traffic Jams

Australia, a land vast and diverse, with cities bustling and bursting at their seams. Here we are, at a crossroads, much like that dreaded five-way intersection in Sydney where you’re more likely to meet your maker than make it to work on time. But fear not, for our beloved minister of Everything Important That We Usually Take for Granted (aka Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, and…

[voxpeople]

More Remote Location Sought As Sending Refugees to Rwanda "Doesn't Go Far Enough"

UK Prime Minister Rish! Sunak is said to be considering revising his flagship policy, after members of his own party have said sending refugees awaiting processing to Rwanda "doesn't go far enough."

A shortlist of potential substitute countries further away than Rwanda is thought to have been drawn up. Included on it are El Salvador, Venezuela, the Philippines and Myanmar, currently in the grip of civil war.

Tory ministers are also thought to be devising plans to launch refugees into space and keep them on a newly established penal colony on the moon, at an estimated cost of over £10 billion.

[copperbadge]

I'm getting depressingly good at identifying the formula for Pop Academic Books About ADHD.

Regardless of their philosophy it pretty much goes like this:

1. Emotionally sensitive essay about the struggle of ADHD and the author's personal experience with it as both a person with ADHD and a healthcare professional.

2. Either during or directly following this, a lightly explicated catalogue of symptoms, illustrated by anecdotes from patient case studies. Optional: frequent, heavy use of metaphor to explain ADHD-driven behavior.

3. Several chapters follow, each dedicated to a symptom; these have a mini-formula of their own. They open with a patient case study, discuss the highly relatable aspects of the specific symptom or behavior, then offer some lightweight examples of a treatment for the symptom, usually accompanied by follow up results from the earlier case studies.

4. Somewhere around halfway-to-two-thirds through the book, the author introduces the more in-depth explication of the treatment system (often their own homebrew) they are advocating. These are generally both personally-driven (as opposed to suggested cultural changes, which makes sense given these books' target audience, more on this later) and composed of an elaborate system of either behavior alteration or mental reframing. Whether this system is actually implementable by the average reader varies wildly.

5. A brief optional section on how to make use of ADHD as a tool (usually referring to ADHD or some of its symptoms as a superpower at least once). Sometimes this section restates the importance of using the systems from part 4 to harness that superpower. Frequently, if present, it feels like an afterthought.

6. Summation and list of further resources, often including other books which follow this formula.

I know I'm being a little sarcastic, but realistically there's nothing inherently wrong about the formula, like in itself it's not a red flag. It's just hilariously recognizable once you've noticed it.

It makes sense that these books advocate for the Reader With ADHD undertaking personal responsibility for their treatment, since these are in the tradition of self-help publishing. They're aimed at people who are already interested in doing their own research on their disability and possible ways to handle it. It's not really fair to ask them to be policy manuals, but I do find it interesting that even books which advocate stuff like volunteering (for whatever reason, usually to do with socialization issues and isolation, often DBT-adjacent) never suggest disability activism either generally or with an ADHD-specific bent.

None of these books suggest that perhaps life with ADHD could be made easier with increased accommodations or ease of medication access, and that it might be in a person's best interest to engage in political advocacy surrounding these and other disability-related issues. Or that activism related to ADHD might help to give someone with ADHD a stronger sense of ownership of their unique neurology. Or that if you have ADHD the idea of activism or even medical self-advocacy is crushingly stressful, and ways that stress might be dealt with.

It does make me want to write one of my own. "The Deviant Chaos Guide To Being A Miscreant With ADHD". Includes chapters on how to get an actual accurate assessment, tips for managing a prescription for a controlled substance, medical and psychiatric self-advocacy for people who are conditioned against confrontation, When To Lie About Being Neurodivergent, policy suggestions for ADHD-related legislation, tips for activism while executively dysfunked, and to close the book a biting satire of the pop media idea of self-care. ("Feeling sad? Make yourself a nice pot of chicken soup from scratch and you'll feel better in no time. Stay tuned after this rambling personal essay for the most mediocre chicken soup recipe you've ever seen!" "Have you considered planning and executing an overly elaborate criminal heist as a way to meet people and stay busy?")

Every case study or personal anecdote in the book will have a different name and demographics attached but will also make it obvious that they are all really just me, in the prose equivalent of a cheap wig, writing about my life. "Kelly, age seven, says she struggles to stay organized using the systems neurotypical children might find easy. I had to design my own accounting spreadsheet in order to make sure I always have enough in checking to cover the mortgage, she told me, fidgeting with the pop socket on her smartphone."

I feel a little bad making fun, because these books are often the best resource people can get (in itself concerning). It's like how despite my dislike of AA, I don't dunk on it in public because I don't want to offer people an excuse not to seek help. It feels like punching down to criticize these books, even though it's a swing at an industry that is mainly, it seems, here to profit from me. But one does get tired of skimming the hype for the real content only to find the real content isn't that useful either.

Les (not his real name) was diagnosed at the age of 236. Charming, well-read, and wealthy, he still spent much of his afterlife feeling deeply inadequate about his perceived shortcomings. "Vampire culture doesn't really acknowledge ADHD as a condition," he says. "My sire wouldn't understand, even though he probably has it as well. You should see the number of coffins containing the soil of his homeland that he's left lying forgotten all over Europe." A late diagnosis validated his feelings of difference, but on its own can't help when he hyperfocuses on seducing mortals who cross his path and forgets to get home before sunrise. "I have stock in sunburn gel companies," he jokes.

[necronatural]

Context on Project Moon discourse

I did some digging and watched some internet slapfights between Korean users, and collected as much context as humanly possible, trying to avoid hearsay where I can:

Misogynistic dudes start complaining about how sexless and non-waifu-female-heavy the game is, feeling the skimpy Sinclair outfit with the thotty little collar VS the fully covered Ishmael outfit is pointed feminist jeering (a law Hawkeye Initiative). Korean anti-feminists are really sensitive to pointed feminist jeering. More on that in a bit

Upon learning the identity artist is male, they trawl the rest of the staff to prove their stupid-ass theory.

They latch onto the lead CG artist, who has tweeted about feminism before.

Project Moon receives countless threats and people marching on their office IRL demanding to speak to the CEO.

The resulting hate campaign leads to Project Moon firing the lead artist for violation of contract; it was specifically requested by the company that all users delete political statements and controversial topics before joining, and the tweets the incels are using seem to prove that the worst case scenario for not adhering to the request has come to pass.

The thing is, she did delete the tweets.

This user has screencapped incels scrambling to justify their belief the game is for man-haters, including a statement that he had dug up deleted tweets. These are old records.

These are the retweets, all made before joining the company (but again, the policy was that the tweets like this should be scrubbed). Most of them are just being catty. The most extreme statements are a scathing satire even a child could understand, and some general feminist sentiments which are not incendiary in any way. It seems they were screencapped to cement a pattern of passionate feelings on feminism.

In Korea, feminism is considered a wedge issue, which means basic activism becomes extremely politically charged. Think of it like how trans issues are being treated in America at the moment, or how "Critical Race Theory" was a wedge issue like 2 years ago. Nevertheless, the most hateful statements in these tweets are not "feminist", but rather annoyance at misogyny, and pretty obviously jokes.

The tweet that the incels are latching onto here states "if being a feminist makes me Megalia, I am Megalia. If being against patriarchy makes me anti-social, I am anti-social". Megalia was a scumbag leftist radfem group originating from Korea's 4chan (anonymous messageboards). It was bad enough that banning gay slurs created a splinter group. Megalia was well-known for mirroring misogynistic behaviours back onto men. They were reviled. An actress lost her job for wearing a T-shirt this group sold, even though the funds were going to supporting women seeking legal actions. Association with Megalia was reputation poison.

Notice I refer to them in the past tense, because Megalia shut down in 2017. The tweet was in 2018. You could not get any more obvious that the statement being made was "you can insult me by calling me Megalia, but I still believe in feminism". There is no association with this incendiary group.

Incels "supported" their argument with an image of Yi Sang holding a vial in basically one of the only 2 ways you can hold a vial, calling it a reference to 🤏, an emoji used as the Megalia logo interpreted to mean "men have small penises". This insane interpretation is being used to cement the whole company as misandrist.

Therefore: Project Moon fired their lead artist even though she didn't violate her contract because insane incels did a "how dare you say we piss on the poor" bad faith misinterpretation of deleted tweets in order to justify their belief that Project Moon is a man-hating company, and as a man-hating company deserves to be annihilated, leading to threats to staff.

The artist for Leviathan later stated that Project Moon pushed the comic forward with no buffer, and when the schedule became unbearable, they just cancelled it. They were told there was an issue with production (supported by the fact the company dropped the translation in favour of focusing on the game), but this news has made the artist pessimistic about the company's treatment of their art team. (Update: deleted, with a statement they feel they felt attached to their debut work, and struggle with feeling like they ran away.)

Here's the artist Vellmori's twitter if you would like to support them through this period.

[mariacallous]

The Swifties were the canaries in the coal mine. Last week, as the fallout from the US presidential election ricocheted across the internet, Taylor Swift fans took a stand. In droves, they left X and went to Bluesky, where, as one Swiftie told WIRED, they could build a new community and not “support Elon [Musk] in any way.” They weren’t alone.

A lot has happened in the week since Donald Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris for the US presidency. For those who spend a lot of time online, one thing in particular stood out: Trump’s relationship with Musk, the X owner who leveraged his platform to support the president-elect’s campaign. On Tuesday, Trump named Musk one of the heads of the new, not-yet-existent Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). That same day, Bluesky announced it had gained 1 million new users in a week. On Thursday, the company said it had gained another million in 24 hours.

Not all of those new migrants to Bluesky are Swift fans, mind you, but they do represent a certain subset of internet culture: the folks who, unhappy with Musk’s links to Trump and how he was running X, finally gave up and decided to relocate their social media lives. Since its rollout in 2023, Bluesky has been a kind of “loose, slaphappy” place, but in the past two months, as Slate pointed out this week, its become a better platform for sharing news and keeping up with live events, a lifeboat for “left-leaning Twitter refugees.”

Whereas Americans used to swear they’d move to Canada if their candidate didn’t win (as if such a move is easily achieved), now they just set up camp on a new platform. No need to break your lease or sell your house, just post “come follow me on Bluesky” with your new handle. If you don’t like any of your new neighbors, that’s cool. Bluesky offers something most folks call “the nuclear block,” which lets users ensure they don’t hear from someone they don’t want to speak to or interact with.

The internet has always prided itself on being at least somewhat borderless. Firewalls, language barriers, and other hurdles exist, but the web still helps information and stories get from one place to another much more quickly than anyone could travel there. No visa required.

Yet, that pride has always been a bit unearned. There are gatekeepers, trolls, bullies. Musk wanted Twitter to be a town square, but you still needed a device connected to the internet to get there—and had to be ready to dodge insults once you did. Even online, NIMBYs want a say. Who gets to call themselves a “local” on any given platform often gets decided by which mob rules. You can go to Bluesky, the Canada of the internet, but be careful what baggage you bring.

What the reelection of Trump has brought is a redrawing of some of the borders of the internet. New users may want to settle on X; longtime users may be inclined to leave. Similarly, some BookTokkers may be inclined to talk about books elsewhere (we hear that folks are going to The StoryGraph since Goodreads is owned by Amazon) or to find a different -Tok to tick away their time in. Politics are disrupting dating apps. The Onion just bought Alex Jones’ Infowars, promising to turn it into a parody of its former self. When it relaunches in January, satire fans will likely flock. Everyone, it seems, is going somewhere else.

All of this, of course, stands in stark contrast to the fact that immigration, actual immigration, was such a contested issue during the 2024 election. During his campaign, Trump promised mass deportations and a crackdown on illegal border crossings if he was elected. He has been. He has also named Tom Homan, a staunch defender of family separation policies, as his “border czar.” Canada is braced for asylum-seekers, but maybe not Americans fed up with who the other half of the country voted for.

Being able to switch social media platforms is a privilege. Even if you believe Bluesky to be full of “theater kid energy,” at least you get to go, and there are more than 15 million people there with you.

[witsserviceablesubstitute]

No, you're right. They're a graceless metaphor with a conclusion that makes what they were representing into apologism rather than condemnation. It's badly done and shouldn't be defended.

I don't think Americans are ignorant, though, just maybe as blinkered about the nation in which they live as we can all be (Australians are hardly better). But it came across that way and I probably do have biases that need unpicking afterall. I'm sorry.

The Seanchan are ImperialismTM, and especially American Imperialism in all its aggressive social conditioning and slave-owning ugliness. There's a reason the Seanchan culture is a mash up of China and America particularly. It's deliberate. It's also a wonky metaphor written by a well-meaning Southern white man in the 90s, so it's far from perfect. Ultimately the Seanchan are no more or less evil than Americans during most of the USA's colonial history. That is to say they are and they aren't. Some swallow their conditioning wholesale, others fight against it, some relish the power the system gives them over others, others are uneasy about the cruelty expected of them yet continue to comply regardless, some break away altogether in an exceedingly painful process. Any dissenting information is buried, any outward revolt is squashed brutally, but it does exist. Of course it exists.

Maybe it's because I'm not American but I find irony in Americans especially being absolutist about the Seanchan because it feels like they're either condemning themselves or blind to how the USA has operated globally and historically. That might be a poor way to see it though, idk.

[writingquestionsanswered]

I'm writing a novel that criticizes the unethical way AI has been used and how newer technology is replacing older methods when they should still be available.

What I'm struggling with is to plan the story while having the tone in mind, because my main characters are goofballs, they're all supposed to bring funny moments and comic relief, but even with the comedic parts I don't want to make the social critic a satire. How do I plan a story with humorous characters doing serious stuff and keep a balance of humurous moments and serious subjects?

Balancing Humor with Serious Themes

Here are some things to keep in mind...

1 - Let the majority of the humor derive from the characters themselves. Since you say the characters are goofballs and bring comic relief, it sounds like you're already doing that. Keeping the characters as the primary source of humor helps to create a buffer between them and the actual (serious) situation.

2 - Time the comedic moments appropriately. When it comes to balancing humor with serious themes, timing is everything. The best time to use comedy in a serious story is when the tension needs to be momentarily relieved. This creates a nice contrast which makes the seriousness of the moment feel that much more serious and deepens the emotional resonance.

3 - When possible, keep the comedy relevant. Let's say you have a dramatic moment where the characters are hunkered down, waiting for something bad to happen (that they know is going to happen), and it's super tense, so one of the characters says something funny. It isn't going to make a lot of sense if they just randomly say, "Have you ever noticed you can never remember the three items you went into the grocery store to buy, but you can recite lines from a movie you saw once nine years ago?" That is a funny observation, but what does it have to do with that particular moment? How is it relevant to what's going on?

A more relevant funny observation would be, "Why is it when I'm waiting my turn to present a book report, the seconds fly by, but when you're waiting for the arrival of a blood-thirsty shapeshifter, suddenly every second takes five minutes?"

Alternatively, if the group happens to be waiting for said blood-thirsty shapeshifter while hunkered down inside a grocery store, that gives the shopping observation relevance.

4 - Work in character development by letting comedic quips reveal quirks, flaws, vulnerabilities, strengths, relationships, personal stakes, and personal journey.

5 - Avoid jarring transitions by using environmental or narrative cues to signal shifts in mood. For example, after the comedic quip is made, maybe the lights flicker and go out, or a huge shadow falls across the floor, signaling the arrival of the bad thing they're waiting for. This helps to transition between the comedic moment (and any comedic reaction) back to the seriousness of the moment at hand.

Happy writing!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

[baroque-hashem]

TW: ANTISEMITIC IMAGERY

In 2019, the New York Times published an antisemitic cartoon by a Portuguese cartoonist named Antonio Moreira Antunes. The Times quickly retracted the image after it sparked outrage.

Antunes was "confused" as to why people thought he was antisemitic. He defended himself this way:

Sound familiar?

Jewish cartoonist Ya'akov Kirschen responded:

Which is an excellent point. There is nothing "Israeli" about Antunes' cartoon. There's a Jewish man portrayed as a dog with a Magen David, leading a bumbling man in a kippah (meant to be Trump). It evokes old antisemitic propaganda of (((the Jews))) controlling the world's (read: American) leaders.

And the problem with Antunes' defense? He has a history of antisemitism.

Really, Antonio? Holocaust inversion? And I thought you were only interested in "innocent critiques of Israeli policy"? Antunes appears to be interested in maligning the Jews. Why else depict such a horrendous image?

Gentiles know how disgusting and painful Holocaust inversion is, to say that Jews are the "real Nazis". They know how much it hurts us. They want us to feel pain. They have been told of the Holocaust their whole lives. Can they really feign ignorance of it now? Their only ignorance is of good manners.

Ya'akov Kirschen knows a thing or two about antisemitic imagery, by the way. He has a whole website where he has collected antisemitic propaganda, and he has much written work about how vile and intrusive antisemitic imagery is.

Uri Fink, another Jewish cartoonist, says something excellent in the Jersualem Post article:

Any individual, especially artists, must have awareness. You live on a planet with over 7 billion people. You can't just be blissfully unaware of anyone but yourself. In Judaism, we speak often of responsibility. Of what you should do. And what you should do is be a mentsh, don't be a putz. Be aware of context and meaning, and don't say or draw heinous images that you are fully aware will hurt a specific group of people.

But then maybe you don't care.

Maybe you want to hurt them.

And that... is what I cannot understand.

[satireinfo]

Kamala Harris Denies All

Kamala Harris Denies All: 15 Hilarious Excuses for Distancing Herself from Joe Biden and the Border Crisis” From ‘Boarder Czar’ to Coffee Breaks: The Vice President’s Creative Ways to Avoid Responsibility Kamala Harris’s Top Excuses: A Masterclass in Political Evasion Washington, D.C. —In the halls of American politics, there is a time-honored tradition of dodging responsibility. Whether it’s a…

[kesarijournal]

The Grand WTO's Food, Fishing, and Farming Fiasco

The Grand WTO's Food, Fishing, and Farming Fiasco

Welcome to the latest drama that’s more tangled than your earphones in a pocket – the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) ongoing saga involving a cast of nations with India and South Africa in leading roles, and a contentious plot over food, fishing, and farming subsidies. Set against the backdrop of Abu Dhabi’s Ministerial Conference, our story unfolds with India and South Africa uniting to…

[voxpeople]

In Short: Ben Ainslie Faces Deportation from UK

The competitive sailor - winner of four Olympic gold medals for Team GB - has become one of the first to fall victim to the government's new laws stating that people found crossing the channel in a small boat will be banned from ever re-entering the country after Ainslie was found sailing off the Hampshire coast.

[spacedustpan]

Hey Tennessee fandom people: the ELVIS Act getting ready to go through. It prevents you from using likenesses of Public Figures and their voices. It's Supposed to target AI of musicians and actors but it's written So Broadly that it can effect things like Political News Reporting, Political Parody, AMVs, Fan Edits, and of course Fan Art. It's not limited to Tennessee households either so a Hollywood company can relocate a headquarters or branch to Tennessee and use Tennessee law to sue people outside the state.

If you care about any of that, then look up your county's/district's representatives in the Tennessee Senate and House and start calling. It's headed to General Assembly.

Specifically the bill says - no one can use a famous person's likeness or voice without that actor's permission for the actors life plus 10 years - .

You can see how likeness and voice can be broadly applied and of course fans would never be able to get permission for fan content.

Surely you can see how this would affect amvs and fan edits on places like Instagram.

It would also affect things like Fan Art for Live Action Series.

This would limit free use for things like parody which would effect comedy too.

It's named after Elvis and claims to be for the entertainment industry but it's written so broadly so that it can be used by public figures in general. So Politicians would be covered under it.

Honestly politicians are trying to get this passed in Tennessee to limit the use of their own likenesses for things like memes because it's a fairly easy state to get ultra conservative bullshit passed.

Here's some more info from Real Clear Policy writer Hannah Cox:

"

Right of publicity laws typically include stringent, clear exceptions and only apply to advertising, merchandise, and fundraising purposes. Those exceptions are for “newsworthy” images in content that provides a “public interest,” which encompasses everything from hard news to documentaries, to satire, to celebrity gossip.

This is a fantastic structure that ensures an individual has a right to their own personhood while also upholding the First Amendment, its protections for free expression and freedom of the press, and ensuring the public has easy, fast access to information.

The ELVIS Act doesn’t include these provisions. As currently written, filmmakers would have to obtain permission from nefarious actors like Jeffrey Epstein’s estate in order to make a documentary about him. The producers of Forrest Gump wouldn’t be able to include all those scenes with historic figures. 

That’s a really good way to protect powerful people from scrutiny. And it would severely stagnate the flow of information online as even obtaining such permissions could take weeks. Additionally, out of fear, many content creators would simply play it safe out of fear of litigation.

The ELVIS Act also does not limit its reach to those living or dead, nor does it restrict its parameters to those with a Tennessee domicile. This seems like an open plea for people to infiltrate the state with ridiculous lawsuits that wouldn’t make it past the first gate elsewhere. It’s almost like the trial lawyers associations wrote this bill instead of Hollywood unions.

But to be clear, this was brought to the Republican legislature by the music industry associations and Hollywood unions - a peculiar entity for conservative lawmakers to be carrying water for to say the least. What these entities really want is an end to Fair Use practices because they’re bleeding money, and instead of making better products or creating new revenue sources, they’re simply being lazy and attempting to restrict the market.

"

--

When you call: You're a concerned republican worried about how limiting AI can hurt small business and how the law should be written more specifically and Exceptions Should be included To Protect Fair Use for Non-Commercial, News, and Parody use, because all are integral to Free Speech.

The Law is Simply Too Broad the way that it's written now and it limits Facebook campaign support for Republicans if they have to get permission from Liberals to use their likenesses. It limits free speech which is integral to preaching God's good word against his disbelievers in a political setting and you won't stand by a politician that limits your freedoms like that. This is America Land of the Free and you'll be damned if you let someone step on you like that. That its Big Government infringing on your rights as an American instead of sensible small government.

--

If you dont live in Tennesse this will still affect you with the ways it's written. It doesn't take much for companies to set up "official" shop in a new state.

It will also ABSOLUTELY be used as the model for a much worse NATIONAL bill if it gets passed in Tennessee. Because Politicians will see that it already succeeded once and HollyWood and the Music Industry are two lobbies FLUSH with cash for bribes and campaign donations.

Mark my words this will absolutely bleed over into national politics which will be devastating for News Reporting and informing the populace which is ALREADY in awful shape.