My attempts to talk sense into a few of these stalwart watchdogs of media reportage have proven largely unsuccessful, as I’ve somehow been unable to press the point that being unfunny is not the same as being serious — that the former is not necessarily the inverse of the latter, because intent, naturally, must be factored into the interpretation. That is to say, bad satire (which, by the way, is subjective) is not the same as de facto seriousness — and the fact that it is The Onion doing the “reporting” is the only real metatextual clue necessary for readers who have actively signed on to follow the Onion’s Twitter feed to recognize that “news” is being spoofed, and that the Onion’s “reporting” isn’t reporting at all.
The fact that the Onion set the gag up without using any self-refential and ironic hashtags in its initial Tweet doesn’t matter: people who received the Tweet had signed up to receive Tweets from an outfit dedicated to spoofing news; and the follow-up Tweets, which happened in rather quick succession, spelled out the full flavor of the gag.
Whether you found the gag unfunny or uninsightful is a different complaint entirely than pretending that the Onion somehow acted to create a mass panic. Those who read the Tweets that way missed the intent — and some, it seems, now wish to blame the Onion for being taken in.
That’s understandable, but it’s not right. And that way lies hermeneutic trouble, for reasons I’ve spent years here discussing.
In fact, here’s a rather (in)famous example of such discussions, which gets a more complete treatment in the comments and in various follow-up posts to later (intentionally misleading) suggestions that I was defending jokes about statutory rape.
Conservatives and classical liberals who often vociferously and demonstrably make a show of defending free speech would do well not to help institutionalize a highly politically-charged cultural dialogic that fosters an increasingly broad range of frightened self-censorship. When the Student Assembly at U-Cal passed a unanimous resolution banning “satire,” I thought conservatives, of all people, would see the irony.
This is not a tightrope we should be walking, because it leads inexorably to a kind of cultural tyranny.
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update: already some folks are taking offense to my characterization of their OUTRAGE as OUTRAGE. They needn’t, because I’m not singling out any Tweeter in particular. Rather, what I’m doing is offering a critique of a form of interpretation I’ve spent years here pointing out is linguistically incoherent, and yet widely adopted and accepted by those on all sides of the political divide — despite it’s representing a determined linguistic move by the left to untether meaning from the individual and grant it to a consensus, opening up the way for “truth” to be determined by a kind of coalition or collective (oftentimes joined together for the sole purpose of political expediency).
I realize it’s not a popular topic. But though many on both sides will give lips ervice to the idea that language matters, they seem to resist with a kind of knee-jerk defensiveness attempt to press the case and to reduce the discussion to its actual fundamentals.
We’ve been here before. What have we learned from it, is the question?
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update 2: please refrain from answering the linked Twitter arguments. Twitter was never intended as a medium to promote discussion. It’s like blogging, in that way.
— Though if you have a link you’d like me to promote, send it along! Nobody will ever be able to say I’m not a team player!
Hence one glaring problem of the 140-character limitation of Twitter. Sometimes it takes more than that to frame a joke, funny or un-, as a joke.
I think it would’ve been much more fun to let this play out as a kind of Protein Wisdom performance art.
Since I don’t do social media, all I have to go off of is Malkin’s earnest tut-tutting, and I don’t see what the problem is.
Hell. Congress has been using Teh Chilluns’ as human shields for years. It was only a matter of time before something like this happened.
one glaring problem of the 140-character limitation of Twitter
Except for the part where the Tweet is clearly coming from @TheOnion. If the Tweet had come from a congresscritter’s Twitter account or from NYT or WaPo, that would be different. But anyone who thought a Tweet originating from @TheOnion was serious or quasi-true is a moron.
Sorry, but there it is.
This isn’t Orson Welles’s “War of the Worlds,” where they broadcast the “news” as straight as can be, with no markers whatsovever to indicate that it was fictional and not real. This is effing Twitter!
Unless you also believe that the @TheTweetOfGod is an authorized account, in which case there’s no help for you.
I laughed. Not a lot, but enough.
Speaking of, Ace is getting all exegetical about Gov. Perdue and her “cancel the election” comment.
Everyone gasp in surprise: Ace agrees with Michelle.
It’s the frelling Onion, fer Chrissakes. I don’t think they would ever post something serious on that feed. They would know better.
On the “Threat Assessment Team“, and its handy use of “can be interpreted“.
h/t Insty
I tried to get them to clarify their positions — is the complaint merely that the Tweets were unfunny? Because that’s a valid criticism, though a different one from the sense of concern I saw early on (the suggestion seemed to be that the Onion had spread dangerous false stories, like, say, suggesting the ingestion of Irish babies) — but I haven’t received a response, unfortunately.
I guess I’ll have to wait for Ace’s post. Somebody link it here when it’s up?
Shit. Now I’ll be as hated on Twitter as I am on the right side blogosphere. And I was just getting the hang of it!
There’s a story told that Plato died with a copy of Aristophanes’ collected Comedies under his pillow.
But at least now you’ll also be hated in tiny (written) soundbites. It’s an exciting new media!
This wouldn’t happen to Patrick Frey!
Maybe, on second thought, it would have.
Twitter. Meh. I could never get the hang of it.
You know, it would be more amusing if they not only had to be constrained by less than 140 characters … but haiku form as well. That would be some dope shit.
Did any of the Tweets portray Boehner as commanding one of the fictional male child hostages to “Come here, boy!” within the hearing of a fictional African-American man? Because that would be REALLY bad.
The 140 limit is not absolute.
Several web sites perform a similar service. TweetDeck does it, too.
I’m already a villain, Carin, for singling out a particular Tweet. Even though I linked it to an argument point, for the purposes of engaging the argument.
Honestly, why do we pretend we’re engaged in conversations? We aren’t. We are little tribes, and you best not anger your tribe by criticizing them or they will throw you out into the wilderness to fend for yourself.
is the complaint merely that the Tweets were unfunny?
They took it seriously long enough to feel stupid after they realized what was going on.
That’s sufficient cause to blast the joker, innit?
Turns out that the first sign of a civilization in decline is the inability to handle satire.
Whether it’s because people are too screwed up to have a sense of humor or because society has degenerated to the point that real events are more absurd than a satirist could possibly imagine is unclear.
As a long time lurker I feel I must comment on this. I think those who think they speak for “our” side are becoming as bad as those on the left. We must be outraged because they said a naughty thing about us. I don’t think they got the joke. This is directed at the left as well. They have said themselves that the Republicans were holding our children hostage many times. All you have to do is watch these clowns on msnbc and this comes out on a daily basis. The so called cool people who say they are on our side have turned into a bunch of whiny bitches. Jeff, Keep pissing these guys off at 140 characters. They need it.
I’m getting grief for linking to only one representative Tweet (I added another). And so when I tell the guy I’ll refrain from discussing his arguments in the future, he decides then is the time to get snide and bring up another argument he would have made, namely, that the fact that multiple people were fooled by an Onion! Tweet and retweeted it means that the Onion is responsible for that (mass, collective) failing.
It certainly wouldn’t be an argument I’d run from.
He’s mad because I biffed him a couple times.
Me. A flower. He can’t handle snark from an effing bleeding heart!
Cripes.
I guess if you have to explain the joke its not worth it. Lets all be outraged for nothing.
I’m offensive to right-leaning folks on all media.
I need to be run off the intertubes!
Wow. I checked his incoming tweets and I was the only person who challenged him aside from Jeff.
please refrain from answering the linked Twitter arguments
You’ll have to report me to @AttackWatch.
What we need is Outlaw/Visigoth watch.
Hey! The Left and the Right have both morphed into humorless scolds!
bi-partisan CONCENSUS!
It seems that I’d need to follow a bunch of people I don’t follow to follow this whole deal.
It’s easy enough. The same people who like to link to the absurd demand that teacher remove a FIREFLY poster are today upset that they were temporarily duped by the Onion — and so the Onion is to blame, and some satire needs to be regulated or, if you are the Capitol police, investigated.
As I noted on Twitter, having the police investigate satire? What’s not to like?
Ahhh, so same ol’ same ol’ then. But it’s on Twitter this time. Progress!
Twitter can be a bit like listening to someone else talking on the phone and being utterly perplexed as to what the person on the other end might possibly be saying.
Nothing out of the ordinary for Malkin, although I always sort of assumed that she was doing it to poke back at the outrage-factories of the left. Now I’m not so sure, I guess.
As satire, it might have been funnier if the timing had been better, maybe in the midst of all the caterwauling about the debt negotiations that gave us the super(-duper!) committee…
the absurd demand that teacher remove a FIREFLY poster
Over at The Corner, some moron in the comments is arguing that the Uni has a duty to keep its workplace free of tasteless material, because workplaces are exempt from the First Amendment: ergo, it’s not a free speech issue.
I feel the same way about people duped by this as those tards Iran just released.
You kind of showed your hand by thinking armed members of Congress had taken hostages, you don’t really need to go so over the top by blaming the messenger.
Remember the first rule of holes.
I just twittered for twenty minutes.
If a naked lady with a pizza doesn’t show up at my door soon I will begin to doubt the medium altogether.
Really, what kind of eeediot would read something; anything written by The Onion and take it literally?
All kinds, apparently.
“Not funny” is a value judgement. It’s not as if The Onion hasn’t published material that left me mourning those lost moments before now, but you don’t catch me asking for a refund.
Speaking of huge jokes.
What was the unfunny joke? Cause I don’t feel like looking it up on Tweeter.
This might be evidence that people shouldn’t be on Twitter. Or, that the world doesn’t need Twitter.
BTW, if you fell for that. you’re a fucking moron and you should shut your computer down and reflect on the state of your life for no less than a month.
I have a legion of idiots. Whatchoo got?
So, I was just thinking.
We should have a couple Twitter related threads where people could put some l33t knowledge to dumberer folks like myself. Like, hashtag, of the devil or our weird techno friend? Also, people could tell other people what @suchandsuch they were for the following and all that.
Wacky thought: we could consider retweeting in a fashion that best leverages social media for our favorite blog. Coughpwcough. Coughtoplesshotchickscough.
(Speaking of which, you lurk, Mal the Tert. Give us a higher level meta thought here.)