An instructional lesson on satire
I knew this day would come. Friends, I have been writing this column for a while now, and for the most part, I have had very little competition in the arena of humor columns. Sure, some of you may argue that Daniel Sidman was a better alternative, but he was in fact completely serious and entirely insane. There’s nothing funny about that. But last week, reading the opinion section of the Echo, I noticed a challenger to the throne. Mr. Mark Gracyk, in writing his comedic rant against the Civil Discourse, created one of the funniest pieces I’ve read in years.
“Now hold on just a second there,” you’ve probably just exclaimed. “I thought he was serious! I was just about to get all of my friends to grab their torches and pitchforks and have a good old-fashioned riot!” Not so fast, amigos. I contend that Mr. Gracyk’s piece was actually a brilliant, subversive work. You may not believe me right now, but I ask you to trust me. I am a trained humor person; I often employ two, three, sometimes zero levels of humor in my articles and I am adept at discerning these levels in the writings of others.
Now, the most important part of satire is irony, and Mr. Gracyk uses it in spades. “The Digest, it seems, is a forum for students (and apparently faculty) to express their opinions about Colby or just the world in general… However, at this point in time, I feel that it is nothing more than a glorified Twitter account.” This is a bit of a “meta” joke that forces you to think not just about the content, but also about the medium. He derides the Discourse as a forum to express opinions in the Opinion section of the Echo, itself a forum to express opinions. It’s like the pot calling the kettle an inadequate mechanism for disseminating opinions!
The next joke, a real ripsnorter if I do say so myself, comes in the next paragraph. “In an ideal world, I would be the first person to say that ‘Yeah, we do need the Digest.’” Do you see what he did there, friends? An ideal world is the only place where you wouldn’t need the Digest. There’d be nothing to complain about, nothing to discuss. Perhaps there’d be a few posts celebrating this ideal world (“This ice cream rain sure is terrific!” or “I’m sure glad we were finally able to train puppies to use the toilet; it’s much nicer now, and adorable to boot!”), but there would be no real need for the Discourse.
Another device I often use is hyperbole; I pick an argument and take it to an illogical extreme to show the inherent silliness of the original argument. Later on in his comedy routine, Mr. Gracyk gives his examples of supposedly “unreasonable” Civil Discourse posts (slyly picking ones that are among the sanest and most reasonable ever to appear on the Discourse). He lists a few of the major problems in the world today (“a famine in Somalia, a financial meltdown in Europe, political instability in the Middle East and raging violence in Mexico”) and then points out that the problems on the Civil Discourse are not really important when compared to these global issues. Friends, I’m surprised you didn’t pick up the joke at this point, you really need to read more closely! Mr. Gracyk is not illiterate. He wrote this article, didn’t he? Mr. Gracyk couldn’t possibly think that a person calling attention to and decrying homophobic behavior is doing so because he thinks starving people and victims of drug-related gang violence are a bunch of exaggerating whiners; that would be moronic.
But the final masterstroke, the comedic coup de grace, came with his conclusion. Mr. Gracyk ended with a quote from Mohandas Gandhi, the contents of which diametrically opposed the pretend “point” of his faux argument. “Real, substantive, quantitative change will come through actions not words. Because, as Gandhi once said, ‘you must be the change you wish to see in the world.’” Did you guys really not get the joke at this point? He uses the written word to change the fact that people have been using the written word to bring about change, and then uses a quote from Gandhi that says, in essence, change is fine and necessary. Breaking from his otherwise deadpan delivery, Mr. Gracyk delivers a broad final wink with aplomb. To my readers, I ask that you pay more attention. And to Mr. Gracyk, I offer only my applause.
