Sunday, May 20, 2012

A Clarification on Satire

So it has come to my attention, many times over, that two posts of mine written in satire (this and this) are continually getting assumed to be not-satire. People continue to think that those posts were real posts with real accounts that really did get reported. To explain this way:

Firstly, none of those accounts exist. "Paul33AD" and "Tishbite_Men_Rul" were "what if" jokes, pertaining to what the apostle Paul and the prophet Elijah would take as usernames if they lived today. If there really are usernames like that on the internet, it is sheer coincidence.

Secondly, I get the feeling people aren't reading the title of the threads to which the "reported posts" belonged. As I sincerely doubt there really exists a thread out there entitled "Why isn't Baal answering my prayers????", one has to conclude the thread name was made up, and hence the entire post is written in jest.

Thirdly, some people do not seem to recognize where the "offending posts" are from. The one for "Paul33AD" is taken from the first chapter of Galatians, while the one for "Tishbite_Men_Rul" is taken from what Elijah says to the priests of Baal during their encounter on Mount Carmel. They clearly aren't real internet posts.

I had at least one more such satire I was going to post before letting it rest for good, but at this moment I'm pondering if I should just let it rest. As the Joker once said, "If you have to explain the joke, then there is no joke."