[Broke for Free’s song “Night Owl” Fades in, an electronic inquisitive beat and drums.]
NIKKI B: You’re listening to another episode of Me / Us/ U
ALYSSA: a podcast produced by English students at Susquehanna University that gives authority to undermined voices of creative individuals and college students to discuss a wide range of topics and this is our episode
ALL: Spot the Satire
[Different voices from interviews saying “Satire”]
NIKKI A: So, does anyone know what satire is anymore?
ALYSSA: Dictionary.com tells us that Satire is the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly, etc.
NIKKI B: Sounds explanatory, I guess
NIKKI A: Do you remember reading Kurt Vonnegut in school? Or Orwell? Johnathan Swift? Mark Twain?
ALYSSA: Maybe you’re more familiar with The Onion or Stephen Colbert or political cartoonists like Thomas Nast.
NIKKI B: We’ll be honest…we’re English and Writing majors and we’re not even sure we completely know how to tell what’s a genuine satirical piece of work and that’s just plain ridiculous.
NIKKI A: We’re your hosts, I’m Nikki A,
NIKKI B: I’m Nikki B,
ALYSSA: and I’m Alyssa
NIKKI A: and in this episode, we hope to gain a better understanding of Satire as it’s been revealed to us in literature, academic settings, news forms, and late-night talk show hosts.
ALYSSA: We’ve turned to the office hours of our professors to learn more about the history of Satire,
NIKKI B: roamed the halls of dormitories to see if our friends could tell us what was a satirical article and what was not,
NIKKI A: and even made a few Skype calls to college grads who once wrote for a satirical newspaper on campus to get the juicy details of an article that caused enough controversy on campus the President of the university was involved.
NIKKI A: So, join us as we learn how to Spot the Satire
[Broke for Free’s song “Night Owl” Fades out, an electronic inquisitive beat.]
NIKKI A: A conversation I have recently found myself in, over and over again, is how literature and the media spread criticism about a wide range of topics from the political to cultural and to art and how we’ve come to understand and digest these criticisms as a society today, in 2018
While I’ve assumed my role as a senior English: Publishing and Editing and Creative Writing major, okay that’s a mouth full, at a small liberal arts school, consuming everything that there is to know about all forms of writing and the purpose they serve, I’ve realized that even still Satire as a form is like an enigma.
My first recollection of encountering satire, and knowing it was satire, was when a copy of the SU Squirrel popped onto my lap at the conclusion of one of my English classes. The Squirrel was a student-run satirical paper secretly distributed on campus. At first, I thought nothing of it, it looked like any old school newspaper to me.
But the Squirrel kept coming into my focus throughout the years, hearing whispers of who in the writing program was writing satire and only knowing it was satire because it was pointed out to me by the student who put it on my desk originally. But what I noticed is how people talked about it, delicately, secretively, sometimes proudly, others hesitantly. It made all the sense why, when some of the articles put out sparked controversy amongst students on campus.
I skyped a recent SU alum Matthew Stullberg, one of the writers for the Squirrel whose article had accrued some vicious backlash from other SU students, something that not a lot of our traditional publications get.
As a writer to writer, I asked him to recount the situation and what he wrote about so I could get the first-hand story of writing satire on a college campus.
MATTHEW STULLBERG: Uh, I don’t know I guess, I don’t know if you’ve read the article, but it was um, it was called “Hipster Drug Addict Only Shoots Cold Brew Heroin.” that you know this guy started a start-up to make like the best cold brew heroin. Which is our fake Starbucks-y heroin, and we published this and then a student who will remain unnamed, kind of lashed out and commented just on the Facebook share that, you know, they thought that this was really offensive and you know we should take this down and if they could get our paper’s advisor so they can talk about shutting the club down. And I kind of jumped on with the Squirrel account and commented something just like, “I don’t really think you got this, wasn’t trying to make fun of heroin addicts here, please, you know, maybe don’t-don’t like lash out randomly and, you know, if you wanna have a debate that’s fine.” But they kinda, they kinda kept going with that and just. I got off the squirrel account and commented with my own account and just said, “I think you missed the point, which was in my mind to kind of satirize the commodification and the glorification of addiction narratives. There are tons of affluent, white, middle class- upper-class kids who get into this, into that lifestyle because it’s cool and because it’s marketed towards them not because they’re stuck in the cycle of poverty and addiction. I kind of tried to point that out…uh… the person didn’t go for it and then the other students in the club took over and said, “Here’s our advisor’s name you can contact them if you want.” But the kid messaged me personally and just said, you know, “If you don’t take this down then I’d like to punch you in your face,” but something, something, you know I don’t know, but after that I was sorta said you know “Look this is—this is moved from a conversation to violence so I’m just gonna, not really show a response and not respond.” and he blocked me, Randy reported it to public safety..
NIKKI A: Matt is referring to Dr. Randy Robertson, the Squirrel’s faculty advisor.
MATTHEW: ..and then I had to, I had to go into public safety and read the article to them. That was very awkward, they had me read the entire thing instead of just glancing over it or like a section, and its filled with references to heroin and so I have to read like, “that sweet, sweet black tar goodness,” like to a public safety officer (Matt Chuckles softly) and they just, they were deadpan the entire time like no reaction at any point so I had no idea if I was doing well with this crowd um but after that I didn’t hear anything about it and it just sorta died down.
NIKKI A: So, this sounds like an extreme case for a single article on a small campus where you wrote something and the point of it was misconstrued, were you expecting this kind of response when you first thought about writing this article? Were you surprised?
MATTHEW: I was surprised that this one got such a strong reaction. Like, I think we’ve written a lot more offensive satire before or satire that can catch people. I did not expect this one to set off like a powderkeg, definitely, it was definitely odd but on the other hand, you know, I think, it’s inevitable that this kind of thing would happen. Um you know (Matt stammers) obviously, especially with the public opiate epidemic now I don’t think you sort of have to be… you know it wasn’t even-it wasn’t even a political issue which is really sort of what I usually expect to set people off within my satire, it was sort of very much a personal one, so I get that, um, but I think-I think a large part of that stemmed from possibly misconstruing the thesis of the satire I guess. And that (Matt stammers) may be my fault. That I didn’t make that clear enough.
NIKKI A: What Matt said about not making the thesis clear enough for the reader made me think back to all of the books and articles I have read throughout high school and college that completely went over my head as satire, for example, Huxley’s Brave New World wasn’t discussed as a satiric piece in my literature class. This makes me beg the question, are we not reading closely enough anymore? Would the student have lashed out at Matt’s article if he had recognized more than just the surface of the text? A part of me thinks that it’s more to do with how we now consume modern satire or criticisms of society, so I asked Matt to elaborate on a time where he discussed what satire is today post-graduation from a small liberal arts college.
MATTHEW: When I was over the summer I was traveling and there was a guy that I didn’t seem to know who I was traveling with and kinda got in it with him-into a conversation about satire and he was sort of saying-I think we were talking about the new Sacha Baron Cohen show, um, which is only kind of satire. There’s a thin line between just humor-political humor and satire, um. But he was sorta saying that you know, it’s sort of all dreck and, and just sorta trashy entertainment, and he was drawing this sort of distinction between like high-culture low-culture art and that satire was inherently low-culture. And I think that’s like a weird-like a weird mindset that people have but I do think that that is sort of, kind of common? I mean, I’m not (Matt stammers) I can’t speak to this with any authority, but the idea that like satire is just sort of a funny, late-night news program that satire’s dominant mode is Colbert or John Stewart and its sort of—yeah it’s sort of like sanitized, fun news mostly for liberal audiences. And I think that that’s like a-a really big oversimplification of what satire can do, I think, you know there’s so many elements of satire especially in such like a multimedia world that we have now that we don’t-we’re so conditioned to just see The Onion as “Oh this is what satire is?” that we don’t look at elements of satire in stuff like movies or TV; where the satire is not just sort of, you know, political humor (matt stammers) and absurdism but it’s a kind of deconstruction of tropes. And an analysis of (Matt stammers) these mediums and things like that, so I think you know one of the—what I would like to see is people readjusting their worldview of satire to kinda see the larger scope of what the medium can do…um…just in terms of, you know, satirical films or satirical comics and what does that mean for, you know, satire that is maybe a-political satire, uh satire that’s making fun of genre rather than, you know, party or something like that. So, um, I think we’re really, we’re used to this sort of—yeah it’s just sort of the liberal voice of (Matt stammers) striking back and kind of making fun of like conservative candidates or whatever ‘cuz that’s what we’re so used to with Trevor Noah and stuff, but I think there’s a lot more that it is being used for and can be used for, and I wish people would kind of tune into that a little more.
NIKKI A: Matt brought up a great point at the conclusion of our interview that I sat with for a while. I think he’s right, there is a lot that the form of satire can be and is used for that not a lot of people recognize today. I contribute it to the fact that maybe we don’t understand satire as well as we think we and now look to what we see in the media in regards to political parties and candidates as satire.
[Scott Holmes’ Indie Rock fades in and out, an upbeat electric guitar strumming and drums]
NIKKI A: I have the privilege of studying at a university that offers an entire course on satire, so I sought out to speak with the professor who teaches the course himself.
NIKKI A: Dr. Robertson is an associate professor of English at Susquehanna and our department’s expert on all things satire, censorship, and discourse in the public sphere. After talking with Matt, I felt it appropriate to ask for the definition of satire straight from the source many of us on campus learned it from. Here’s what Dr. Robertson had to say:
DR. ROBERSTON: I think satire, [pause] is [thoughtful pause] at its best what the earl of Shaftesbury, and I’m paraphrasing here calls, “a test of truth,” right? It cuts past the layers of pretention and pettifoggery and all the other things that go into, um, trying to obfuscate or-or cloud a problem, and gets right to the…to the center of it right.
NIKKI A: Okay, so let’s unpack what Dr. Robertson said first. He uses the word “pettifoggery” which comes from the combination of petty and fogger meaning disreputable and underhanded arguments about petty points. He also uses the word obfuscate which means to render something obscure, unclear, or unintelligible. Basically what Dr. Robertson is saying is that satire cuts beneath pretentious and petty arguments that try to cover up the truth of a problem and gets right to the center, usually in cases of societal and political problems.
DR. ROBERTSON: So, I think when satire works well it serves as a test of truth, a kind of BS detector right? And I think it can be very good at doing that. I think humor is necessary to satire otherwise you’re dealing with some different creature, you’re dealing with again a kind of maybe oddball, political commentary but not satire. So, um, it doesn’t mean that you’ll necessarily laugh right? Some satire is tragic, but there are different forms of humor and so (Dr. Robertson stammers) I think it involves some forms of humor or different forms of humor but you’re not necessarily you know cackling at the end.
NIKKI A: Dr. Robertson and Matthew Stullberg offered me a lot of great insight to what it’s like to write and study satire on a small liberal arts campus, but Alyssa, Nikki B and I are just getting started.
[Krackatoa’s song “Running with wise fools” fades in and out, an indie jazz-esque guitar in the foreground]
ALYSSA: Hello everyone, this is Alyssa.
Before working on this episode, I read a lot of works of satiric literature like Catch-22, American Psycho, Slaughterhouse Five, Fight Club, and probably others that I didn’t even realize were satire when I read them. I knew what satire was or at least that is what I thought. After talking to people like Dr. Robertson who are knowledgeable about the genre as well as really passionate, I realized satire was more complex than I originally thought and I wanted to know more about its history.
As mentioned by the people we talked to, there’s Horatian satire and there’s Juvenalian satire. Horatian satire is lighter in tone. It gently ridicules the absurdities in society and it uses more of a witty humor. Juvenalian is angrier. It uses realism and harshness and calls attention to issues with contempt rather than wit. You’ll hear these terms being used again so it might be important to remember them as I now give a crash course on the history of satire.
According to Satire: A Critical Reintroduction by Dustin Griffin, satire will emerge at particular times and places. 18th century England was one of these times. For this brief history lesson, I’m skipping to this time period because that’s when things got more interesting. According to Satire in 18th Century British Society from the Inquiries Journal, satirists of this time used both Horatian and Juvenalian satire to expose the moral corruption of society. Some dude wrote an essay in 1729 called A Modest Proposal. This essay is kind of important. It was basically telling people to eat babies. I mean not really because it was satire. It takes on a serious tone and proposes that the Irish could fix their economic troubles by selling their children as food for rich people. Jonathan Swift, the dude who wrote this essay, was using the shock value of Juvenalian satire to reveal the British’s indifference to the impoverished Irish population.
Alexander Pope was another satirist of this time. He wrote a poem called The Rape of the Lock, which used a Horation style of satire. The poem describes some guy stealing a piece of a woman’s lock of hair and the woman having a temper tantrum as a result of losing a piece of her hair. It exaggerates what seems to be a small incident in the style of a mock epic poem. Pope uses this style to call attention to the vanity and superficiality of British society at this time.
Both Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope were dissatisfied with the society they lived in and they wanted their society to change. They used satire to inspire change. This is true for other times we find satire emerging. Satire was popular in 20th century America.
[American psycho monologue]
ALYSSA: American Psycho is another work of 20th-century satire that’s kind of important. Just to clarify, I’m only going to talk about the novel although I do recommend the movie if you are interested in an opening sequence that features Christian Bale completely shirtless. It’s about a wealthy investment banker named Patrick Bateman who also happens to be going insane and begins murdering prostitutes in the most inhumane ways. I read American Psycho a few years ago. I remember when I got it from the library some old man gave me this look of concern and said it was really graphic. I remember reading it on the beach and I definitely don’t recommend bringing American Psycho on your next beach vacation because it is very graphic, but the graphic elements are supposed to shock the reader and are used to critique capitalism and the materialistic attitudes of Americans during the 1980s. Like many works of satire, there was controversy surrounding this work due to its graphic nature.
I mentioned Catch-22 before. Catch-22 is novel about World War II and it satirizes the military and points out the absurdities of bureaucracy and the military by using humor. The main concept it uses is called the catch-22, which you may have heard used before outside of the context of this book. A catch-22 is “a problematic situation for which the only solution is denied by a circumstance inherent in the problem or by a rule.” In the book, the soldiers have to fly missions. A person would have to be crazy to fly these missions, but only a sane person could fly these missions. If they asked not to fly the mission they were considered sane and they had to fly the mission anyway. It’s hard to wrap your head around, which is the point.
Most of the satire we see today is more Horation. It uses wit and humor to point out society’s problems. Saturday Night Live uses parody to satirize political figures. South Park uses parody and caricature to criticize various aspects of American culture. Steven Colbert takes on a persona of an opinionated and self-righteous political commentator to satirize conservative political talk programs. News satire like the articles from the Onion is also a thing, but we will get to that later in the episode when I ask students if they can identify an article as satire or as a real news article.
[Battery Operated Orchestra’s song “Wish List” fades in and out, a 90s rom-com thriller sound with electronic beats]
NIKKI B.: Hey everyone! It’s Nikki B. here and now that you have more of an understanding of what satire is, I wanted to explore how satire is written. Conveniently, Susquehanna University is unique in a lot of ways and one of those ways is in the fact that our English and Creative Writing department is home to a lot of student-run publications. One of them, The Squirrel, is focused solely on satire. The Squirrel, unlike the more literary magazines on campus, has always felt more like a mystery to me. For a while, it was only published online and all I heard about it were whispers. With this in mind, I sought out Danielle Bettendorf, a senior who currently serves as the president and senior editor of the publication and has been involved with The Squirrel since she was a freshman.
We had a long conversation and she not only helped me understand satire better, but she also gave me a little insight into the way one might write satire, especially here at Susquehanna.
One of the first things I asked Danielle was what kind of satire you can find in the squirrel. I knew there were different types, but the ones I’d seen were mostly political.
DANIELLE BETTENDORF: Ooo. I’d say it’s a mix. We do some political. We do some general life ones like I remember we had one a while ago that was like “student really excited for mid-day nap” or something and there’s also like Susquehanna specific ones where we’ll base it off of like events. I’d say it’s really up to the person.
NIKKI B.: After hearing that the squirrel does a little bit of everything, I wanted to know what the most important part of writing satire was because if satire was just about making jokes, all comedians would write satire, but that’s not the case.
DANIELLE: I guess the importance of making a point I’d say. Yesterday we were meeting and we were just talking about possible articles and stuff and then one of my co-editors was like I’m going to write something about like vampire blow jobs. But that’s just a joke. It doesn’t have a point. So he was like “Okay I’m gonna like make a point about welfare and stuff and then I’m going to put the joke in.” So I think it’s a little more complicated than people realize, but I’m not going to say that it’s like that like no one can do it because that’s not true at all. Just that it is, it has more facets than you’d think.
NIKKI B: The idea of vampire blowjobs seemed like something straight out of left field. Even as a self-identified creative person, I couldn’t imagine coming up with that, so I asked how ideas like that come to be.
DANIELLE: We do brainstorming sessions. It really depends on like It’s kind of the same as you get an idea for anything. It can just be anywhere. Sometimes we’ll brainstorm like “Oh! Homecoming’s coming up. What can we make like with homecoming?” But yeah just general like pretty similar to other stuff I think.
NIKKI B.: Keeping in mind that a lot of satire is based on controversial topics, I asked if there were any topics that should be avoided when writing satire.
DANIELLE: No. I think that some topics can be more difficult to joke about than others. So like recently I was trying to write about the Kavanaugh confirmation, but it’s just like such a tricky subject and I really… I think for some subjects It’s harder to make good satire than others. So I wouldn’t… If done right I don’t think there’s anything that is off limits. But I think it can be very easy to make a bad joke about something.
NIKKI B.: I then asked if things on campus were any different and if the squirrel ever thought twice when publishing articles.
DANIELLE: We’ve done that a little bit in the past if it was involving Greek life. If it was involving like the president, like Prez Lems or Green. So we kind of do try to be careful but at the same time, we’re not going to censor ourselves for that if that makes sense.
NIKKI B.: Danielle and I also talked a lot about the risks that come with writing satire when people misinterpret your intention. I noticed on the old Squirrel website that one of the listed authors chose to go unnamed, which led us into talking about what it takes to write a piece that is clear.
DANIELLE: I think one of the big things we try to emphasize with writers is like understanding the message you’re trying to get across. So like the one “NRA Praises Role of Gun in Suicide of Mass Shooter I don’t even remember who wrote that, but just like being able to talk, for example, that one about like gun control and like your perspective on it and why, what you’re trying to say in a certain way. I think if you can express yourself eloquently, it works.
NIKKI B.: At this point, I felt like I had a good grasp on how writing satire works, at least if you’re writing for The Squirrel, but I was still curious as to how to get involved, so I asked how she got involved and whether or not satire brought her to The Squirrel or if The Squirrel brought her to satire.
DANIELLE: I’m going to be difficult and say neither. Umm, I think like everyone else when I was growing up like everybody knows The Onion, that kind of stuff. You see it online. Umm, I got here. I remembered seeing posts about The Squirrel online and I was like, “Oh my gosh. That’s so cool,” like that they have that because not everyone has something like a satirical publication. So I went and I just kept going and I became a writer and an editor and now I’m the president so I think it’s kind of just a chance of like, It’s something that I hadn’t really investigated, but having the opportunity at Susquehanna I like dove in.
[Musical Interlude]
NIKKI B.: After talking with Danielle, I really wanted to go back and look at a copy of The Squirrel, just to see everything Danielle and I talked about in action. After getting my hands on the fall 2018 edition of The Squirrel, I found an article by my friend, Dan Sellers, who is both a writer and editor for The Squirrel. Here’s a little sample of his article, “SU Fraternity Holds Charity Anti-Hazing Kegger.”
Members of Susquehanna University’s Kappa Epsilon Gamma chapter held an 18th Street charity kegger on Friday, September 28th to raise money in support of National Hazing Prevention Week.
Events of the night included case races, a doubles beer pong tournament, and a Keg-Stand Against Hazing competition. The cover was $5 or a donation of alcohol for the party. Food included light snacks and heavy refreshments.
As the event coincided with Alcohol Awareness Week, partygoers were shown a powerpoint on how to self-induce vomiting and given a practical demonstration on what to do when your buddy falls down the stairs. Following the educational portion of the party, Kappa Epsilon Gamma president Richard Pickins issued a public statement condemning hazing on Susquehanna’s campus. “Listen, guys. Hazing is, like, not cool. We all know about it —it’s happened to me, it’s happened to you. We can’t let people see us as those guys who shoot off fireworks in each other’s buttholes anymore.”
Before closing in preparation for the afterparty, Kappa Epsilon Gamma members signed an anti-hazing pact. A resigning of the pact was then scheduled for the following Monday due to a lack of legible signatures.
Not everyone was thrilled with the change. Junior Jimothy McRogers said, “I’m super sad to see our traditions go. Beer just isn’t nearly as fun when you can’t drink it out of a dirty cleat. Hangovers just won’t be the same.”
Others, such as two-time sophomore Edward “Slim” Arlington, held a more optimistic view of the future. “This is the perfect opportunity for K-Ep Gam to turn over a new leaf. Just cause we can’t haze people in public anymore doesn’t mean the tradition will completely go away.”
[Battery Operated Orchestra’s song “Wish List” fades in and out, a 90s rom-com thriller sound with electronic beats]
ALYSSA: Hello everyone, this is Alyssa again. The other day I was scrolling through Tumblr as I normally do. I came across this image of what appeared to be a news article headline.
The headline said, “Soy farmers say they’re developing telekinetic powers in order to compete with China.” The headline was accompanied by an image of some farmer man staring at floating soybeans At first I assumed this was from the onion or maybe it was just fake news. It was actually a meme and it didn’t have a link to an actual article, but it reminded me of this experiment that you are about to listen to.
We decided that it would be fun to ask some students about satire. We picked some articles from the onion that had eye-catching headlines as well as really ridiculous sounding headlines that happened to be from real articles.
What you are about to listen to is me stating the headlines of these articles and then you will hear the responses of whether the students thought they were real or satire. After each question is asked, there will be a pause before the final answer so that listeners at home can play along too.
ALYSSA: Okay so I’m going to read you guy some titles of articles and you have to say whether you think it’s a satirical article from either the Squirrel or the Onion or if it’s a real article.
ALYSSA: Local child wins gun from fundraiser.
STUDENT 1: Real
STUDENT 2: Real
STUDENT 3: Real
STUDENT 4: Fake
STUDENT 5: That’s the onion
STUDENT 6: Real
ALYSSA: Yup, that one is real.
ALYSSA: Statistics show that teen pregnancy drops off significantly after age 25.
STUDENT 1: Satirical.
STUDENT 2: False.
STUDENT 3: True
STUDENT 4: That’s the onion.
STUDENT5: Fake.
STUDENT 6: True.
ALYSSA: That one is real.
ALYSSA: Simple joy of child stolen from toddler who is told he can’t touch his own genitals at the dinner table.
STUDENT 1: I feel like that’s real
STUDENT 2: Satirical
ALYSSA: That one is actually from the Onion.
ALYSSA: Man dressed as penguin receives more votes than the liberal democrats.
RESPONDENT 1: Satirical.
STUDENT 2: Real.
STUDENT 3: False.
STUDENT 4: Fake.
STUDENT 5: Real.
STUDENT 6: Fake.
STUDENT 7: Real.
ALYSSA: Yup, this one was real.
ALYSSA: Staten Island teen with mayonnaise jar full of marijuana finds he cannot outrun a horse
STUDENT 1: Real.
STUDENT 2: Real.
STUDENT 3: True.
STUDENT 4: True.
STUDENT 5: True.
STUDENT 6: That’s fake.
STUDENT 7: True.
ALYSSA: Yes, that one was a real article.
ALYSSA: And those were all of the headlines I had for this experiment.
ALYSSA: What I thought was interesting was that what a lot of the students thought was satire was actually real. There was actually a study done by Stanford a couple years ago that tested young people’s ability to evaluate the credibility of online information. They tested college students as well as high school students and middle schoolers. What they found was a large number of their participants accepted information that was not very credible as credible.
When I asked some of the participants about why they answered the way they did, they said that they knew that satirical articles will have headlines that sound ridiculous, but also there are really ridiculous things that happen in real life. They had to determine whether they thought the article seemed like it could actually happen or not. They were sometimes surprised to find that the most ridiculous sounding articles, like the one where a kid won a gun at a fundraiser, were actually real articles.
What’s interesting about satire is that it points out the absurdities of real life by embellishing these things. But real life can be also really absurd like we’ve seen in this experiment and sometimes you might actually feel like you are living in a 20th-century satire novel.
[Scott Holmes’ song “Indie Rock” fades in and out, an upbeat electric guitar strumming and drums]
NIKKI B.: Hey everyone. It’s Nikki B. again and I’m going to teach you how to spot satire and fake news.
Let me set the scene: It’s a Sunday night. You’re in the library. You just got out of work and you have a mountain of homework to get to before you can go to bed. You’re a procrastinator. You’ve already scrolled you’re whole Instagram feed and there’s nothing new to see on Twitter, so you’ve resorted to Facebook. After liking a few engagements photos and a pregnancy announcement from people you graduated high school with, you come across a post from your aunt. You know the one. She’s political and her and your dad always get in fierce debates over the Thanksgiving turkey every year.
She’s posted a news article she’s found online and she’s livid. “That lousy Cheeto of a president has done it again!” It’s a multi-paragraph rant, capital letters, and poor grammar both key staples of the presentation and here’s the kicker. The story she posted, and everything she claims is going wrong this time, aren’t actually happening. The article is fake. It’s so outrageous that even in the current political climate, it couldn’t happen. The article is satire, published on a site made to look like it belongs to Fox News when it really doesn’t. Whoever wrote that article, just wanted people like her to believe it and post about it.
“Fake news” is an epidemic currently plaguing our country. Our President finds it around every corner and rumor has it, the Russians are planting it on our Facebook feeds and attempting to sway our elections with it. The craziest part about fake news is that sometimes it isn’t just fake, it’s satire. This means there are certain, specific characteristics that set it apart from news articles. According to the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, there are 8 steps to spotting fake news and satire.
Step 1: Consider the source. CNN? Probably real. The Onion? Definitely not real. Take a look at the actual URL, not just the front of the site. If the URL itself doesn’t look real, the article probably isn’t either. It also doesn’t hurt to Google the site itself and see what others have to say about it. Usually, fake news sites are reviewed as such.
Step 2: Read beyond the headline. A lot of fake and satirical news sites have outrageous, unbelievable headlines in all capital letters. If it looks like something that’s impossible to believe, it might actually be.
Step 3: Check the author. A quick Google search will tell you the truth. Does the author exist? Are they a known satirist? Do they work for a credible news organization? These things can found easily and can be a big indicator of credibility.
Step 4: Supporting sources? If there are hyperlinks, see where they go. If the connecting stories further the point the article is trying to make, it’s more likely to be a real article.
Step 5: Check the date. Old news isn’t fake news, but it’s probably not relevant the way it would have been if it happened yesterday.
Step 6: Is it a joke? Satire features strong use of irony, humor, and exaggeration, meaning that if a story seems too crazy, ridiculous, or bias to an unpopular opinion, it might be satire, not news.
Step 7: Check your biases. Sometimes we click on articles because they are what we want to believe. Your super liberal aunt will want the news story about Trump destroying the universe on a Tuesday to be real because that will further support her hatred of him. Just because it would help you prove your point, doesn’t mean it’s a real point.
Step 8: Ask experts. There are millions of fact-checking websites like FactCheck.org and Snopes.com to tell you the truth. If you’re really not sure, check.
I guess the moral of the story is this: It’s not your political aunt’s fault that she got caught up by the fake news. We’ve evolved beyond the age of traditional satire into a world that revolves around the internet where literally anyone can write news articles. The Internet is hard. Satire and fake news can be tricky. Just ask the people Alyssa sprung all of those news titles on. It’s harder than you’d think.
[Broke for Free’s song “Night Owl” Fades in, an electronic inquisitive beat]
NIKKI A: Thanks for tuning in to our episode of Me/us/u,
ALYSSA: this has been fun getting to learn along with you
NIKKI B: We hope you’re always asking questions, asking for clarity, and exploring ideas that may seem like you have no authority over.
I’m Nikki A, I’m Nikki B, and I’m Alyssa, thanks for Spotting the Satire with us.
NIKKI A: The Music in this episode is brought to you by Broke For free, Scott Holmes, Krackatoa, Battery Operated Orchestra, and Vincent Augustus, all found on the Free Music archive and sound effects from freesoundeffects.com.
Special thanks to Matthew Stullberg, Dr. Randy Robertson and Danielle Bettendorf for graciously agreeing to be interviewed as well as other students who participated in Alyssa’s headline segment.