Azizi,

Here's another example.


Lets imagine for the sake of this argument that I made disparaging comments about Smokey to illustrate my point of view.

I might lead up to those comments by describing a context and therefore setting the scene so that readers were in no doubt as to my intent and the meaning of my post.

That way people know what I'm driving at when I begin my "Tirade":



Smokey makes me sick!! He's a typical whingeing liberal who thinks he knows everything on every bloody subject from race to immigration. Furthermore, being from south east London you can bet your bottom dollar that he is a thieving lying chav who shouldn't be given the time of day much less listened to or trusted. What's more, one minute he's all anti BNP and then the next minute he's defending anti-semitic comedians. What a tosser, I hope he and his family all die slow agonizing deaths.



"Tirade" over.

Ok - what did I do?

I imagined how an objectionable bigot with an axe to grind might attack smokey. I deliberately threw in some typical urban stereotypes and exxaggerated the whole cocktail in order to draw attention to exactly how unpleasant and unreasonable such attitudes are.

Smokey clearly doesn't fit the above description, but for my satire to work I have to get close to the bone, so that on the one hand it is exaggerated but on the other so that it is believable.

If it isn't believable then it is useless as satire as it does not draw atttention to the thing it satirtizes which is real.

Apologetic satire satirizes pleasant fictions which don't need to be satirized.

Besides, once you know the context, the "Tirade" can be laughed at. The reader isn't laughing at smokey, they are laughing at the ridiculous and a little thrilled by the edginess of it as there is always a risk that smokey or others might miss the point of this post and think I actually hate him.


Anyway, I will now illustrate my point by reposting this post selectively so that only the "Tirade" is left.

Note how differently it reads.