Satire, Sensibility, and Stuff

I like satire. I like sarcasm. I like witty writing that makes fun of life and its idiosyncracies. That is why my favorite new(ish) blog is Stuff White People Like. Now, people are pretty much divided into two camps on this. You either love it or hate it. Think it's completely spot on or think it's out in left field. You either laugh hysterically at every entry or stop reading out of disgust. I happen to fall into the former of each of those.

Essentially it's a satirical blog about various "stuff" (from Whole Foods and Bottles of Water to Having Gay Friends and Barack Obama to Dinner Parties and Multilingual Children) that "white people" (which should read "liberal urban yuppies") enjoy. I find it well written and for the most part fall into the "wow, this writer could be following me in my life" category. SWPL has recently become quite a sensation, receiving half a million hits a day some days. I pretty much read it every day. NOT AT WORK THOUGH, I SWEAR.

Check out the "About" section and see all the truly special comments from people. One of the aspects of the internet that is most disturbing to me is the tendency for people to feel no accountability for what they say, simply given the anonymity. It's like, if you don't have anyone holding you accountable (parents, teachers, employers, God), your inner self-righteous egotistical narcissistic self takes over and decides that filterless angry tirades are a perfectly acceptable way to express your opinion. Right. But, for the most part, I just laugh at the absurdity. And the pray that someone will give these angry angry people a hug.

I apologize if you're one of the people who are offended by this site, but really, take a step back, take a deep breath, and think, "There are so many more productive things to be angry at. Like people who think they can sing well but are really tone deaf."

In other news, another satirical website that I enjoy is Lark News, the "Christian" equivalent of The Onion (also good, while we're on the subject of satire). With stories like "Mormon 'Bachelor' show surprise: He marries them all!", ads for Jackass for Jesus, and books for sale like "A Field Guide to Evangelicals and Their Habits" it's pretty much the best thing I've seen in a long time. Again, I can see people falling into two camps about this one. There are those of my faith (and others) who tend to find the combination of "church and humor" about as offensive as many people find "church and state" to be, and accordingly take themselves (and their faith) VERY SERIOUSLY. They find movies like Saved! blasphemous. They are uncomfortable with, oh right, most everything. They probably don't like my blog.

Now ok, I'm being dramatic, but really, I think this site is pretty amusing. You may disagree. Just please don't write an angry tirade about it in the comments section. Thanks.

Happy reading.