The Babyloon Bee is an Onion ripoff aimed at conservative Christians. There’s just one little problem: while the Bee writers understand the whole “fake news” aspect of the Onion, they seem to have forgotten to make any of their “satirical” posts even a little bit funny.
Here are a few recent headlines from the site that demonstrate the extreme non-funniness of the Bee. I’ve linked to the original posts so you can make some sense of the more obscure ones. But trust me, these headlines aren’t any funnier with the explanations.
Indeed, if you somehow manage to find one or more of the following even a little bit funny, there is probably something very wrong with you.
NASA Ends Mars Mission After Finding Out Planet Has No Early Voting
Joe Biden Appointed As Head Of TSA
Parents Disguising Kids As Illegal Immigrants So They Can Receive In-Person Teaching
Episcopalians Permanently Switch To Cardboard Parishioners
To be fair, it’s hard to be hilarious about Episcopalians.
Since I can do little surveys, I thought I’d allow you to vote on which of these headlines is the least funny.
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I’ll give them a point for the coconut car one because of the Monty Python references.
I vote this one as the least funny. Episcopalians are perfectly inoffensive people and poking fun at them isn’t punching up, and isn’t even really punching down, but just flailing around and punching whomever happens to be in the way.
I tortured myself by reading the headlines and the articles. This shit is worse than failed humor; as David warned, some of these headlines are incomprehensible without context, and when you get the context it’s really stupid.
P.S. Is Naglfar okay? She’s one of the most frequent commenters on the site, but I haven’t seen anything from her lately.
One ore thing: When I went to the Babylon Bee website, I got this popup box:
I did like the Monty Python reference, but aside from that, none of them were funny.
Poll isn’t working for me, but I would have gone with the parents disguising children one.
@Alan Robertshaw
I was going to give them that point too, and actually find it mildly amusing. Then I read the article. Nope. Not even in the slightest, they managed to suck everything out of it. I took the point away again and subtracted 100 more.
Edit: Like, to be clear I disagree with the viewpoint for sure, but it’s just a joyless screed with the one coconut joke and then they try to lean into Monty Python desperately bringing in swallows as well but make it racist. It’s just SO badly done. The ineptitude. Cringe.
@Crip Dyke
It doesn’t work for me either, but that was my choice for least funny as well.
I think there is something wrong with me then, because I thought the article about vaccinated people being allowed to punch unvaccinated people in the face and the idea of Elmo joining Antifa and torching buildings to be kind of funny…
And personalpest is right. Where is Naglfar?
I’m guessing that in order to vote, you need to be logged in? I don’t have an account with Gravatar or WordPress or whatever David’s using for the login, and for the moment don’t plan to.
It was a close call for me (exceedingly lapsed Episcopalian) between that one and the illegal immigrant one.
Oh, who am I kidding, they’re all horrible, except the Python reference gets it 1 point out of 100 and the others get negative numbers. I didn’t read the articles because life is too short, and I’d probably have to have gone into negative numbers with exponents and it’s Monday.
It’s been a couple weeks. I’ve been assuming it were just Passover and family obligations.
The coconut headline got a brief nod of approval from me. Sounds of it, I’m rather glad I didn’t click through though.
> Green New Deal To Replace All Cars With Guy Running Behind You Banging Two Empty Coconut Halves Together
The title for that one could lead to something funny. At least to me, an european organized around not having a care and often mocking America and its obsession about making everything doable only with a car.
I’ve wondered for a long time why conservative humour doesn’t seem to work. I’m pretty sure its because there’s nothing funny about the already privileged getting more of what they want?
My backgammon forum is infested by a QAnon follower who occasionally reposts Babylon Bee links. Kook magnetism at its finest.
Even the Babylon Bee types can’t pretend that undocumented immigrants have it great. Here’s the last line of that article: “Unfortunately, the kids do have to sleep in cages with foil blankets now, but the parents say it’s a sacrifice well worth making.”
Huh? That’d make more sense in a satire aimed at negligent parents rather than at a supposedly “nanny state” government favouring “illegals” over “true” Americans (blegh).
…I find “Episcopalian” a funny word. No shade on people who are Episcopalian, but it’s just one of those long and bouncy complicated words that sounds amusing. I grew up Presbyterian, and that’s also kinda funny sounding, imo.
Babylon Bee was funny when they stuck to inside jokes about shitty praise bands and church committees. Their attempt to go mainstream is just awful.
PS. The only people who can properly make fun of the Episcopal Church are Episcopalians. We’ve got years of experience. And fudge! Did I mention the fudge?
So it turns out that The Babylon Bee has a magic ability. Somehow each article manages to be the worst despite that not normally being possible. It’s like a Möbius strip of awfulness.
@Epitome
Hazards of importing Greek religious terminology. Episcopalians hold that the church should be organized in a hierarchy, with a council of bishops (Greek: episkopos) at the top. Presbyterians don’t hold with bishops and consider a council of church ministers/elders (Greek: presbuteros) who are all equals should govern overall church policy.
True answer: all of ’em, Katie.
@ schnookums
“Why did the chicken cross the Möbius strip?”
@Alan
It was too long to go around
We are also called “Whiskeypalians” for good reason. Ooh, Christmas cocktail parties, in Mom’s congregation, sigh.
Also: divorce, birth control, and being gay are fine, but you go to Episcopalian Hell for using the wrong fork.
@Paladin; @GSS ex-noob:
I have to ask: was Virginia Cary Hudson’s O Ye Jigs and Juleps! (the diary of a ten-year-old Growing Up Episcopalian in 19Aughts Kentucky) part of your formative reading?
@Waywatcher of the Green:
I’ve wondered for a long time why conservative humour doesn’t seem to work. I’m pretty sure its because there’s nothing funny about the already privileged getting more of what they want?
Also because a typical conservative joke is a threat with a laugh track; you might recall one family’s infamous Christmas card with the mother and daughters bound and gagged and the father and son smugly beaming; the caption was “Peace on Earth.”
And because humor is rooted in surprise and ambiguity.
re: conservative humor
Conservatives actually find their own humor to be very funny. People who aren’t conservatives find it annoying at best, and actively offensive at worst, because conservative humor generally punches down at vulnerable and marginalized populations. When it doesn’t, it just punches randomly. It’s hilarious to poke fun at black people, for instance, when you’re not black yourself and have no actual empathy for anyone who isn’t exactly like you. If that doesn’t describe you, you’re not going to find it funny, but if that doesn’t describe you you’re likely to be something other than conservative.
It’s in-group vs. out-group humor, in other words, with the in-group being the white and (relatively or absolutely) privileged. If that sounds like bullying to you, you’re not too far off. Conservative humor and bully humor are pretty similar.