>>14793516
cont: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/10/babylon-bee-news-kyle-mann-wokeism/620376/
Mann: I’m always amazed when we get emails from overseas missionaries who are underground and can’t reveal where they are, being like, “Hey, you guys are keeping us sane.” The Boomers love us. We got the Boomer-humor market locked down.
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Green: Are you proud of that, or a little ashamed?
Mann: Gen Z humor sucks, so I’m cool to be called “Boomer humor.” And every time I go and do a speaking engagement, there are a lot of college students who are maybe the only conservative in their class. In a lot of areas, being the conservative is punk rock, you know?
For them, it’s like, “You guys are writing comedy that doesn’t hate me.” It’s like they found their underground cabal of secret comedians who agree with them.
Green: It sounds like your audience is more likely to be the red dot in a sea of blue than the red dot in deep-red territory.
Mann: That’s a lot of it. We’ve got a large audience in Texas and the South too. But most of us are in Southern California. For us, life is being that red dot.
Green: Do people ever pitch headlines that are too offensive for you to publish?
Mann: Yeah, for sure. All the time. And we know there’s a sizable portion of the internet that would love to dogpile on us if we tell a joke that can get misinterpreted. As an editor, I have to think along those lines. Like, “I know exactly what lefty Twitter is going to say as soon as we publish that.”
Green: Are you scared of lefty Twitter?
Mann: They’ve hated us for five years. It doesn’t really matter that much. But at the same time, we want to be careful. I don’t want to make it easy for them.
We did this great joke where we said, “AOC accidentally strangles herself with her shoelaces.” And then we put in the headline, “Because she is so stupid.” We’re making fun of stupid Boomer jokes about [Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez]. We’ve reposted it to Twitter a few times. Every time, lefty Twitter gets so upset. They’re like, “I can’t believe they wrote this joke. It’s not even funny.” And every single time, we say, “We apologize for this joke. We just want to clarify that the joke is that she strangled herself tying her shoes because she’s so stupid.” And then they get mad at that. It’s hilarious. We’re the only ones in on the joke.
Read: The culture war over pregnant people
Green: You guys wrote an article in January 2020 that was shared roughly 3 million times, claiming that Democrats called for the American flag to be flown at half-staff when the Iranian general Qasem Soleimani was killed in an American strike.
What makes this funny? I know that’s the worst question to ask somebody who writes jokes.
Mann: It’s funny because General Soleimani died and then they called for flags to be flown at half-mast. Get it?
Green: But that’s what I’m saying. Besides just saying the joke again, what makes it funny?
Mann: Do you want me to explain the joke to you? Because the joke is that General Soleimani died and Democrats were sad.
If you don’t know why that’s funny, then you’re not the audience for the joke. The funniest part is that it got fact-checked because it was so believable that Democrats would do that. That’s a real honor.
Green: It sounds like this is a Supreme Court and pornography thing: You know it when you see it. You either laugh or you don’t, and if you’re in the don’t category, we can’t help you.
But I want to ask about the fact-checking part. I don’t think the reason Snopes fact-checked it was because it was so plausible. I think it’s because it was being shared millions of times. What if people did believe it was real? Do you worry about that, regardless of how many times you make it clear that you’re a satire publication?
cont: