LOS ANGELES—A recent study by the News Inanity Research Laboratory revealed that the increasingly ridiculous state of real events has triggered a dangerous shortage of satire material.
“Our findings show that the world is steadily approaching maximum ridiculousness,” said NIRL researcher Megan Ortiz, citing the antics of celebrities, drug addicts, terrorists, conservatives, and the entire state of Florida as major contributors to this trend. “This leaves very little work left for satirists to do. 67% of actual news stories already give off critical readings on the batshit-ometer. You can’t build up from there.”
This study does not come as a surprise for many satire writers, who have recently found themselves at a loss when asked to put humorously absurd spins on already-absurd stories.
“Before, the question was always ‘did The Onion do this already?’” said satire magazine editor Liam Nakamura. “Now I have to worry if the LA Times did it already. I don’t even know what to do anymore.”
NIRL expects the real world to slowly evolve into an elaborate satire of itself over the course of the next 150 years.
