Comments on: From the Hood : How To Misunderstand Satire

By: David in Chch

David in Chch — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 06:27:36 +0000

I only stumbled upon Werewolf belatedly, hence my belated comment.

To my chagrin, one of my most widely read and noted papers, even mentioned in the mainstream media (Washington Post, Toronto Globe and Mail), was published in Annals of Improbable Research (AIR), a science humour magazine. (Yes we actually can write humour, although I grant that more often than not it’s unintentional.)

By: lyndon

lyndon — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 03:42:55 +0000

Unfortunately WordPress seems to have chewed on the link (let me fix that for you…), but it’s a goodie.

I also find Poe’s law relates to Edgar Allen Poe’s thoughts on the maximum length of a poem.

By: Matty Smith

Matty Smith — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 07:57:03 +0000

Among = Amount in Typolish.

By: Matty Smith

Matty Smith — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 07:55:11 +0000

Of course the among of actual ridiculous stuff on the net probably helps distort people's critical faculties. I'm surprised there was no mention of the internet meme known as Poe's Law above: [link]

By: lyndon

lyndon — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 05:36:43 +0000

For what it's worth at this point, I just came across a Mark Twain piece detailing not less than three spectacular failures of the audience to get the point.

By: Jackson J Wood

Jackson J Wood — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 08:37:08 +0000

Thank you Mr Hood for writing this. We at Salient have been facepalming at the inability of people to realise that one page a week of our news section is satire. One article in particular particular sparked heated debate. Of the many emails I received, some where aghast that we would out a mature student in such a way. Others were bemused. One even threatened to take us to court on behalf of Mrs Sampson. The person seemed quite distraught when I informed her that it was quite hard to take legal action on behalf of fictional people. Personally I see satire as a way of connecting to people and cutting straight to the underlying point about what you want to discuss.