By BEN R. WILLIAMS
Over the last year or so, there has been a proliferation of Facebook pages that offer satirical news articles poking fun at current events in Martinsville and Henry County. I have been asked by numerous people if I’m the one behind any of these pages.
Let it be known here and now that I have no affiliation with any of these pages, nor will I ever.
Obviously, I did not invent satirical news articles, and I’m not so conceited as to think that I’m responsible for this trend. However, I have been writing news articles satirizing current events in Martinsville and Henry County for more than a decade, some of which have gone locally viral, so when I see this stuff pop up in my feed, I can’t help but feel like Victor Frankenstein learning that the creature he created just drowned a little girl in a lake.
I don’t know who operates these local satire pages on Facebook, and I doubt they would want to hear any advice from me. Having said that, there is nothing I take more seriously than comedy, and I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t see room for improvement on these pages.
With that in mind, I’d like to present my Three Rules of Satirizing Your Hometown.
- Punch up
The best comedy punches up, never down.
During my prior career as a full-time journalist, I got to know just about everyone in local government and local media. With very few exceptions, they’re good people trying to make a positive difference in our community. Sometimes they misspeak or take a step in the wrong direction, but their hearts are generally in the right place. They’re public figures, but not in the same way as state and federal politicians. For one thing, the pay is much worse.
I try to satirize ideas, not people. For example, I’ve never written a column that mocks a specific person on city council, but I’ve written columns satirizing ideas pushed by members of city council or the infighting on city council. You can make a positive difference by saying, “Hey, this one idea is dumb and maybe you can all do better.” It’s hard to make a difference by saying, “Hey, this one guy is an idiot, and also fat and ugly.”
If I write a column that’s about a specific person, which I have done in the past on rare occasions, it’s because they’ve done something either egregiously cruel or dangerous, at which point I feel the gloves are off. But even then, I don’t use their real name if it’s a satirical piece, only if it’s a straight commentary.
- Do it yourself
I’ve probably written 20 columns about my seething hatred of AI, but the point still stands. AI is cheap and lazy. If you’re going to satirize local politics, put your back into it and do it yourself.
For example, I once wrote an article about a dumb new idea the city of Martinsville was implementing, and it included the line, “An MBA went to a seminar and now it’s everybody’s problem.” I don’t mean to brag, but AI couldn’t generate a line like that. That’s the kind of pointed, cutting criticism that can only come from the human heart, and I feel certain that it made someone very angry and they probably spent a large portion of that evening staring at the ceiling fan. You don’t get that effect by spending three seconds asking ChatGPT to generate an image of a local guy with stink lines surrounding him. It takes effort, by God.
- Own it
I can’t help but feel mildly offended when someone asks me if I’m behind any of these anonymous satire pages on Facebook. Every piece of satire and criticism I’ve ever written has had my name and my photo attached to it.
Have there been consequences? Of course! A few people have given me the stink eye in public. There are a couple of businesses I don’t go to out of fear of poisoning/getting savagely beaten in the parking lot. One guy has tried to get me fired, but he does that to everybody so I don’t feel too special.
However, I don’t regret any of the satire I’ve written, and I’ll never criticize something without my name attached. I don’t believe in punching people in the dark.
I realize the irony of writing 750 words about comedy without any of it being particularly funny. But satire is serious business, and it’ll all be worth it when I open Facebook tomorrow and see an AI-generated photo of Shrek with a beard and the headline, “BLAND R. WILLIAMS BORES ENTIRE COUNTY, FARTS SO BAD IT SETS OFF TORNADO SIRENS.”
