TOTALLY NOT FAKE NEWS: The Death of Satire?

PEARLAND, TX – While we at Totally Not Fake News are dedicated to providing completely, 100% fact-based, accurate reporting, with emphasis on the “100%”, “reporting” and “-based”, we do understand that our straight factual reporting has spawned a few “imitators”. Thus it was that we arranged a meeting with one of these organizations to discuss the current state of reporting, and noting that apparently these are surprisingly hard times.

“I tell ya, satire is so difficult these days.” noted an editor from Not Completely Totally Not Fake News. Not Completely Totally Not Fake News is seen as one of those “satirical” news sites, looking to take the headlines of the day from established and truthful news sources like Totally Not Fake News and add a bit of a ‘humorous spin.’ “The key to good satire/humor is to take a real headline/situation and just try to take it to a level of sublime exaggeration. The whole ‘wouldn’t it be funny if the team actually did that’ sort of vibe. That is usually the bread and butter of our business. As steady as a good ol’ CHUM play to start a Texans football game.”

“Normally, we have an open system for writing ideas. So long as it is not too offensive, it is a free-for-all. Especially for our sports department following the Houston Texans. However, the past couple of years, the editorial meetings have been absolutely brutal. You would have thought that our editor-in-chief was channeling the sweat boxes of Walt Disney with how ALL of these story ideas got slaughtered.”

Photo by ullstein bild via Getty Images

Check out what didn’t make it past the editorial red pen of death:

• The team makes a head coach with no personnel experience and who hadn’t made it past a Divisional Round playoff game the GM AND the Head Coach at the same time. His first big trade is to send TWO 1^st round picks and a 2^nd to Miami for a LT. Doesn’t even sign him to a contract extension before the deal.
• The Super GM/HC man sends ALL of the 3^rd rounders for washed up cornerbacks and a receiving running back who is never allowed to carry the ball.
• The Texans bring in a failed youth pastor to run football operations.
• The Super GM/HC executes a trade so bad that you couldn’t execute in Madden franchise mode.
• The Super GM/HC actually loses his job to the youth pastor, who takes over the GM spot and runs the team.
• The team ends up hiring the guy they wanted for the GM job a year and a half before, all so the youth pastor can remain in charge of the team.
• The greatest quarterback in team history, and arguably the history of the city’s professional football existence, even after signing a fat contract extension, absolutely does not want to play for the team ever again.
• The team hires a coach who has never been a Head Coach at any level and was a middling assistant coach at best.
• The franchise quarterback, who has such great public standing he got his alma mater to reject the legacy of its state’s most powerful politician ever, is the subject of multiple civil lawsuits for sexual assault/harassment against a bunch of massage therapists.
• The team signs 28 free agents, and somehow, its projected win total gets worse.
• Eric Murray. Just that there is Eric Murray on the team.
• The team trades a low draft pick for a third-string QB, only to cut that QB two months later to clear a roster spot to sign another third-string QB.

“Every single one of these ideas was pitched for our satire articles. Guys and gals spent days on these pitches, putting in so many hours and crafting the right jokes mixed with facts. The editor just grew so exasperated:”

“[EASTERBY] IT!!!! Can’t any of you [EASTERBY] scribes get it through your [EASTERBY] heads!!! The whole point of satire here at Not Completely Totally Not Fake News is that there is a degree of plausibility for these events to happen! You can’t just throw some crazy [EASTERBY] [EASTERBY] out there and think that people will buy it. We can’t go bat[EASTERBY] crazy out here!!!”

“Needless to say, morale at our facility in Pearland is at an all-time low. People are actually talking about moving to find work in Dallas. [Easterby] Dallas! Or worse still, Nashville!!! I’d rather suffer a humid night smelling the rancid air of Texas City drinking a lukewarm glass of San Angelo water with a lifetime-supply-of-calcium-in-every-sip over that kinda [Easterby] on Earth.”

San Antonio Express News

We at Totally Not Fake News tried to talk to our counterparts, noting that their inputs may not have been as fanciful as their editor thought, but they couldn’t face the idea of trying to convince the inconvincible.

However, to try to boost the confidence of our colleagues, we did wonder if he had an idea brewing, one that might have some value. Not that we at Totally Not Fake News feel threatened or offended. To quote Sammy Davis Jr, “The day they don’t make fun of you, that means they don’t give a damn about you.”

So, with small signs of hope in his eyes, the writer spoke: “Well, I did have this one concept. I figure that given all of the free agents the team has signed, particularly the idea that many of these signing look like LBs, I figured the team would just forgo all of the other positions on the field and play strictly LBs at ALL 22 positions. Not just LB-DE hybrids, but LB-SS, LB-CBs, LB-NTs, LB-LTs, LB-C, LB-WRs, LB-G…heck, even the LB-QB. The team doesn’t need a dedicated QB or dedicated any position. We have LBs everywhere. We throw off our opponents with our LB prowess. LB are the most interchangeable/fungible assets on the team, and we take it to the extreme. Even if we have 4 QBs on the roster, we just use LBs. Even the LB-P, the LB-K, and the LB-GM…that will be so awesome, right?”

Pinterest.com

Yeah, your editor might be on to something with the absurdity factor.