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Not the Onion
By William Rivers Pitt
Truthout | Op-Ed

Thursday 20 February 2014

It ain't getting any smarter out there, people.

- Frank Zappa

Reality is a funny thing these days, because it's pretty much bent. A guy named Nathan Poe, after a number of singular interactions on the website Christianforums.com, came up with an adage that has come to be known as Poe's Law: "Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that someone won't mistake for the real thing."

To wit: it has become pretty much impossible to distinguish between actual craziness and parodies of craziness, because the craziness has gotten so crazy that literally everything is on the it-could-be-real table.

I run a fairly well-populated Facebook page, and whenever I post a true story that is too demented to be believed, I am compelled to caption it with three words: "Not The Onion." The Onion, in case you somehow don't know already, is the gold standard for internet satire. My two favorite Onion headlines of all time are: 1. "ACLU Defends Nazi Skinhead's Right to Burn Down ACLU Headquarters," and 2. "Pat Buchanan to Gays: 'I Will Not Incinerate You.'"

Years ago, when The Onion made its bones, it was still pretty easy to spot satire online. In the last few years, however, that bright line has gotten blurred. Example: I saw a Facebook meme just the other day quoting Michele Bachmann saying that Native Americans aren't real Americans and should be happy with what they have. I actually Googled the quote to make sure it wasn't real - it was fake, as it turns out, made up by another satire site called DailyCurrant, but it got plastered into memes anyway because it was so gruesomely believable. Poe's Law wins again.

This entire country, of late, has been transformed into a proving ground for the larger point behind Poe's Law: We can no longer distinguish between crazy and fake crazy.

For example:

A guy in Kansas brought a concealed pistol into a bar on Saturday, got drunk, and accidentally shot himself and another patron when he reached into his gun pocket to grab some cash. The name of the bar was "Shot Time II."

On the very same day, a corrections officer in Ft. Lauderdale walked into a bar with a concealed pistol, got drunk, and injured nine people when he reached into his gun pocket for cash and accidentally discharged the weapon. Those nine were injured by the one bullet because the bullet fragmented upon impact with the table he was seated at. The name of the bar was "Shooter's Waterfront Café."

Eleven people in one day shot by two bullets fired in places named "Shot Time" and "Shooter's Café," because irony leaves deep footprints when it stalks the land nowadays.

Oh, and also, a man in California found a gun by his garbage barrels, picked it up, and immediately shot himself in the abdomen.

Not The Onion.

The rest: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/21984-william-rivers-pitt-not-the-onion