Satirists file for unemployment because real life is becoming too exaggerated.
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me
Oh yeah, and out of work satirists
That last line should be shoehorned into the end of The New Colossus plague. “It’s 2021!” people who expect shouting the year will actually accomplish something keep shouting. Indeed it is, and real life has become so zany that satirists have nowhere to go. Nowhere, that is, but the unemployment line. Thirsty for Clicks has always had an eye for the downtrodden, mostly because it makes us look more benevolent and caring than other media outlets. Satirists are starving. We will cede the point that they can afford a few weeks of meager provisions. Due to the nature of the profession most are massively obese. This can’t go on indefinitely though. We caught up with Latrell Garrison. We’ll let him tell his story in his own words.
“I’m Latrell. I’m thirty-one years young, and I spend my days living in my mom’s spare bedroom, feuding with my stepdad Chad about video game time on the big TV in the living room and how he treats my mom.”
“Is that just until you get on your feet?”
“No, that was my situation when I was still employed. Most bloggers live in some variation on that theme. Up until a month ago, I was making an okay living writing for ________________.” (competing media outlet omitted because the struggle for clicks is real up in this piece)
“So we hear you’re out of a job.”
“That’s correct. I’ve simply run out of ideas. Problem is I’ve been doing this since the Obama years, and I’ve no other discernible skills beyond biting sarcasm and jokes to make a point.”
“Why’ve you run out of ideas?”
“Well, satirists really like it when Democrats are in power. There’s always heaps of fodder for comedy. Republicans can be made fun of easily, but they and their base tend to lean conservative, so the humor comes mainly from their curmudgeonly desire to keep things the same. I’ve maintained for a long time that the grassroots constituency of Democrats is largely—not wholly—but largely comprised of various lunatic fringe groups. They are a fractured, disjointed, dysfunctional, and often cannibalistic family. So when their guy is on the throne, they’re emboldened to see who can come up with the most crackpot ideas, along with how fast they can be seen and disseminated by respected intellectuals as legitimate theory. And the Obama years were good to us on that front. He was somewhat moderate, and a strong, charismatic leader, so the flow of these ideas was slow but steady. But now, it’s like we can’t keep up anymore. The far left has completely hijacked the DNC and this milquetoast president. And I’m a Democrat saying this! You’ll have a college professor making up new forms of sexuality, so we start writing an satirical article about a made-up professor making the case to legitimize pedophilia. Before we can even post it, a real professor will publish an article about adding pedophilia to the accepted spectrum of sexuality. I mean, it’s absolutely insane! Or like, we’ll be brainstorming an article about the eight new genders that so-called “science” has supposedly discovered, and the full count will have surpassed that. It sits at like seventy-two now. Intersectionality argues that oppressive systems are all connected and interdependent, so we’ve completely run out of silly things to attribute to white supremacy. It’s like it’s a competition among social justice warriors to see who can name the new oppressive person/place/thing/idea. It’s infuriating and it’s putting us out of a job.”
He began sobbing at this point. It made this interviewer really uncomfortable. What’s that? We want to be seen as caring, and saying that does the opposite? Why am I repeating everything you say? Why am I typing this side conversation? I should strike this from the article? Yeppers, will do, boss.
“So what’s next for you?”
“Well, I’ve filed for unemployment but got denied because I was technically freelance.”
“Have you thought about taking up more legitimate forms of writing?”
“Come on man, like it’s so easy to start making real essays just like that.”
“That’s a really good point. Sorry I suggested it.”
Hey there, beloved reader! Don’t stop reading yet. I enjoy writing and creating content for you, but I don’t get paid to do it just yet. Recently, I took on the Herculean task of fixing America and wrote a book on the subject; the very literal-titled “I’ll Fix America Tonight”. There is a a link where you can conveniently add the book to your Amazon cart (if you’re flush with about $20 in cash right now) or your wish list (if around $20 in cash is a little too much right now, but hypothetically not too much in the near future). Buy it, and help end poverty (namely my poverty). Thanks for reading!
Unemployment sign image taken from:
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/oldwestbury-wm-macroeconomics/chapter/why-it-matters-unemployment-and-price-indexes/