The Quantum Paradox of Truthiness: Satire, Activism, and the Postmodern Condition

In the past decade, people associated with what is known as the alt-right have employed a strategy similar to that of progressive, antiracist satirists to advance a decidedly white supremacist, anti-Semitic, misogynist, and deadly serious agenda. As this article docu- ments, the alt-right weaponizes irony to attract and radicalize potential supporters, challenge progressive ideologies and institutions, redpill normies, and create a toxic counterpublic. Discussing examples of satiric irony generated by the extreme right alongside those produced by the (often mainstream) left, this article pairs two satirical memes, two activists’ use of irony, two ambiguously satirical tweets, and two recent controversies pertaining to racism and satire so as to illustrate how people with very di erent political commitments employ a similar style with potent e ects. Of particular signi cance are reverse racism discourses, including “white genocide,” and the increasingly complicated relationship between intentions, extremism, and satire. Keywords: alt-right, satire, ironic authenticity, social media, racism, white supremacy, white genocide, redpilling

This article introduces a second special issue on satire from Studies in American Humor. Satire has a long and (mostly) honorable place in the Western tradition of belles lettres. When Juvenal was writing in the first century AD, he spoke admiringly of his predecessors, Horace and Lucilius. Probably, the satirists of the twenty-first century AD would speak of Juvenal as their worthy ancestor for dispensing comic ridicule. His surviving satires are products of his middle and old age, and his fate was to be virtually unknown during his lifetime. The satirists examined in the articles presented in this issue are mostly well known, and some will certainly be logged as this age’s contribution to satire’s long tradition. Those comic writers provide a satiric critique of today’s zeitgeist that marks out vice and folly while implying the virtues of better behavior. Their satires create a laughable chronicle of the times and so are worthy of a sustained scrutiny. Jonathan Rossing, An Ethics of Complicit Criticism for Postmodern Satire Viveca E. Greene, “Deplorable” Satire: Alt-Right Memes, White Genocide Tweets, and Redpilling Normies William Howell, Judgments, Corrections, and Audiences: Amy Schumer's Strategies for Narrowcast Satire Rebecca Krefting, Hannah Gadsby: On the Limits of Satire James Nixon, “You think I’m joking”: Examining the Weaponized Comedy of President Obama’s Stand-up Addresses at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner Christopher Gilbert, Of Satire and Gordian Knots

SATIRE IS ONE OF THE MOST CAPACIOUS AND MOST MISUNDERSTOOD literary terms. This may be because it is applied broadly to any art form—in any media—that mocks or sniggers at convention; or it may be that its humor rests on irony, which is a term that is even more misused and misunderstood than the term satire. Popular culture is ironic, but it is the postmodern irony of cynical knowingness and self-referentiality. Traditionally, irony has been a means to expose the space between what is real and what is appearance, or what is meant and what is said, revealing incoherence and transcending it through the aesthetic form and meaning of a work of art. The irony of postmodernity denies a difference between what is real and what is appearance and even embraces incoherence and lack of meaning. It claims our interpretations of reality impose form and meaning on life: reality is constructed rather than perceived or understood, and it does not exist separately from its construction. Awareness of constructions has replaced awareness of meaning, and postmodern irony replaces unity with multiplicity, meaning with appearance of meaning, depth with surface. A postmodern audience is made conscious of the constructed nature of meaning and of its own participation in the appearance of things, which results in the self-referential irony that characterizes most of our cultural output today. Television, the dominant media of postmodern

Abstract for book Digital Media and Democracy: Tactics in Hard Times, ed. M Boler (MIT Press) "In an age of proliferating media and news sources, who has the power to define reality? When the dominant media declared the existence of WMDs in Iraq, did that make it a fact? Today, the "social web" (sometimes known as Web 2.0, groupware, or the participatory Web)—epitomized by blogs, viral videos, and YouTube—creates new pathways for truths to emerge and makes possible new tactics for media activism. In Digital Media and Democracy, leading scholars in media and communication studies, media activists, journalists, and artists explore the contradiction at the heart of the relationship between truth and power today: the fact that the radical democratization of knowledge and multiplication of sources and voices made possible by digital media coexists with the blatant falsification of information by political and corporate powers. The book maps a new digital media landscape that features citizen journalism, The Daily Show, blogging, and alternative media. The contributors discuss broad questions of media and politics, offer nuanced analyses of change in journalism, and undertake detailed examinations of the use of Web-based media in shaping political and social movements. The chapters include not only essays by noted media scholars but also interviews with such journalists and media activists as Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, Media Matters host Robert McChesney, and Hassan Ibrahim of Al Jazeera."

This thesis examines the contemporary interplay between satire and politics, focusing on texts that envisage and engage with politics in unconventional and often mischievous ways. There is a long tradition of scholarship concerned with issues such as satire’s ability to promote subversion, awareness, apathy or even cynicism; the potential, or lack thereof, of satire to influence any change in political or journalistic discourse; and the relationship between satire and “truth,” particularly in satire’s capacity to “speak truth to power.” My research expands on this tradition, asking, how does televisual and online political satire contribute to shifting political discourses? Focusing primarily on the under-researched relationship between satire and Australian politics, this question is considered through textual and discursive analysis. Firstly, I examine the difference between cynicism and its ancient counterpart kynicism in order to illustrate how different types of satire approach the idea of truth and truth-telling. I then explore how the larrikin, the carnivalesque and a cultural “distaste for taste” play an important role in the way satirists are given legitimacy to speak on political issues in Australia. My research observes that in the current media landscape, satirists and politicians are encroaching on each other’s spaces. The satirist is given a licence to speak both satirically and seriously about politics, and the politician attempts to gain cultural capital through playing with the satirist in good humour, sometimes actively satirising themselves. This direct interplay between satire and politics has contributed to three significant shifts within political discourse: certain satires are now being used as trusted, legitimate sources of political information and truth; politicians increasingly engage with satirists or use satire in ways that suggest a political attempt at co-option; and those who I define as “citizen satirists” are engaging in practices of consumption and production resulting in online satirical texts that have, due to the global flow of information, started to contribute to political debates in more traditional mainstream media.

The several most recent studies of Horace Satires 2.1 have made a strong case for the thorough-going irony of this piece, effectively chal-lenging many of the more traditional notions which commentators have maintained concerning the satire's allegedly "serious" ...