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fake news that's not funny!

Survey: What’s the least funny Babylon Bee post of the last week or whatever

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

Green New Deal To Replace All Cars With Guy Running Behind You Banging Two Empty Coconut Halves Together

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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Alan Robertshaw
Alan Robertshaw
3 years ago

I’ll give them a point for the coconut car one because of the Monty Python references.

Last edited 3 years ago by Alan Robertshaw
Policy of Madness
Policy of Madness
3 years ago

Episcopalians Permanently Switch To Cardboard Parishioners

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.

personalpest
personalpest
3 years ago

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.

Last edited 3 years ago by personalpest
personalpest
personalpest
3 years ago

One ore thing: When I went to the Babylon Bee website, I got this popup box:

Stay Ahead of the Censors

Big Tech is suppressing conservative voices. Sign up for our free newsletter so you’ll keep getting our content, no matter what.

Last edited 3 years ago by personalpest
Miri
Miri
3 years ago

I did like the Monty Python reference, but aside from that, none of them were funny.

Crip Dyke
3 years ago

Poll isn’t working for me, but I would have gone with the parents disguising children one.

Big Titty Demon
Big Titty Demon
3 years ago

@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.

Last edited 3 years ago by Big Titty Demon
Big Titty Demon
Big Titty Demon
3 years ago

@Crip Dyke

It doesn’t work for me either, but that was my choice for least funny as well.

.45
.45
3 years ago

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?

Snowberry
Snowberry
3 years ago

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.

GSS ex-noob
GSS ex-noob
3 years ago

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.

Threp (formerly Shadowplay)
Threp (formerly Shadowplay)
3 years ago

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.

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.

Last edited 3 years ago by Threp (formerly Shadowplay)
Ohlmann
Ohlmann
3 years ago

> 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.

Waywatcher of the green
Waywatcher of the green
3 years ago

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?

Numenaster
Numenaster
3 years ago

My backgammon forum is infested by a QAnon follower who occasionally reposts Babylon Bee links. Kook magnetism at its finest.

epitome of incomrepehensibility

“Parents Disguising Kids As Illegal Immigrants So They Can Receive In-Person Teaching”

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.

Paladin
Paladin
3 years ago

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?

Schnookums Von Fancypants, Naughty Basic Horse
Schnookums Von Fancypants, Naughty Basic Horse
3 years ago

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.

Dalillama
Dalillama
3 years ago

@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.

Halloween Jack
Halloween Jack
3 years ago

True answer: all of ’em, Katie.

Alan Robertshaw
Alan Robertshaw
3 years ago

@ schnookums

It’s like a Möbius strip of awfulness.

“Why did the chicken cross the Möbius strip?”

Dalillama
Dalillama
3 years ago

@Alan
It was too long to go around

GSS ex-noob
GSS ex-noob
3 years ago

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.

Full Metal Ox
3 years ago

@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.

Last edited 3 years ago by Full Metal Ox
Policy of Madness
Policy of Madness
3 years ago

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.