Komedy Klass: What -- Or Better Yet WHY -- is Satire?

Why this? Any of it.

“Pierrot and Harlequin” by Paul Cézanne, from the Pushkin Museum.

***This is the second edition of IMBW Komedy Klass! You can always send your stuff to KomedyKlass@imightbewrong.org — every time we do this, I pick one piece to serve as a focal point.

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I was a political comedian for about 15 years before I started to wonder: What the hell is this crap? Why does political comedy exist — why should current events be combined with jokes? It’s not a natural pairing, like bacon and eggs — it’s two unconnected things happening at once, like Hibachi Skiing, or Naked Carpentry. Combining jokes and news is less necessary than the mental image of bare-ass naked Geppetto toiling in his workshop, shaving away layers wood with an old-fashioned hand planer, sweat beading on his back and collecting at the top of his ass crack, his ancient dick and balls jiggling to side-to-side within a thicket of gray pubes as he labors to shape the wood to his liking.

Yeah, well fuck you, Chat GPT.

The answer, I think, is pretty simple: People want to know what’s happening in the world, but most things are boring, and jokes are the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down. A political comedian’s job is to add enough sugar to make the news palatable.

That can be tricky. But sometimes, the Comedy Gods give you an event where the humor is baked in. And in those cases, political comedy isn’t really sugar, but salt, because all you’re doing is trying to bring out the flavor that’s already there.

And that process is called satire. I’d define satire as “the exaggeration of ridiculousness to make a point” (and Webster’s and the OED basically agree). With satire, something has already happened that’s worthy of mockery, and a comedian’s job is to highlight the hypocrisy, flawed thinking, or lapsed ethics that make the thing risible. And you do that by amplifying the funny thing until it’s impossible to miss.

In today’s edition of Komedy Klass, reader Greg Nix — who writes a humorous humor newsletter called Chortle — pokes fun at cynical fear mongering in a piece of satire as well-built as anything that ever came out of Naked Geppetto’s workshop. IMHO, the piece is an excellent specimen of the genre, so here it is; after you read it, I’ll talk about what I think Greg did right.

Chinese Food is a Threat to National Security

The Chinese Communist Party's attempts to influence American society come in increasingly sophisticated forms. While much recent attention has focused on the possible TikTok ban and artificial intelligence firms like DeepSeek, a more insidious threat has been quietly expanding its reach: Chinese food.

According to new analysis by the Institute for Culinary Security, Chinese restaurants now occupy prime real estate in 77% of American strip malls. This strategic positioning gives our most powerful international foe unprecedented access to hungry Americans during the critical 11:30 AM to 2:00 PM lunch decision window.

The implications for our national security are dire.

Consider the economy. When Americans choose Chinese takeout over authentic domestic cuisine, they directly undermine mom-and-pop American companies like PepsiCo and Chipotle Mexican Grill. Our intelligence indicates that Chinese restaurants achieve this market penetration through concerning tactics such as “consistently good food” and “reasonable prices” – advantages that American establishments simply cannot match without compromising our values.

Even more troubling are the addictive flavor profiles. Laboratory analysis reveals that dishes like General Tso's Chicken are scientifically engineered to be “delicious,” giving them an unfair advantage over traditional American fare. Multiple agencies have confirmed that Chinese food becomes especially appealing after consuming marijuana, suggesting a coordinated effort to target our nation's most vulnerable snackers.

The security implications extend beyond economics. A recent white paper suggests that regular exposure to superior cooking techniques may cause Americans to question their foundational principles. The psychological progression is well-documented: It begins with statements like “This orange chicken is pretty good” and quickly escalates to advocating for the annexation of Taiwan.

Some analysts have dismissed these concerns, arguing that Chinese food has been part of American society for generations. This complacent attitude ignores the sophistication of modern Chinese food operations. Today's establishments can even locate your home address by taking advantage of American-built infrastructure (DoorDash).

We must act now to protect American interests. Our only option is a complete ban on Chinese restaurants (or an equivalent sale to American interests). Additionally, we should establish a strategic reserve of cheeseburgers to ensure our food independence in times of crisis. The choice is clear: either we address the Chinese food question, or we accept a future where Americans have access to objectively superior dining options. The stakes could not be higher.

The author is a senior research fellow at the Institute for Culinary Security and the majority shareholder of Chipotle Mexican Grill.

Quality stuff, Greg! My one recommendation is that you should have gotten a sponsorship from Panda Express, because reading this made me hungry for Chinese food.

I’d say that Greg’s essay contains three necessary components of satire:

1. An observation

2. Mimicry

3. Absurdity

Observation

Fear mongering is everywhere. In fact, the sentence “fear mongering is everywhere” is a little fear monger-y — I could extrapolate that to argue that the main thing we have to fear is fear itself. The point is: Fear mongering is a powerful tool that’s often used for selfish ends.

And that’s what Greg is satirizing in his piece. The ominous tone he uses is familiar, and so is the piece’s subject: People go nuts with the Sinophobia sometimes. Even if you think that some wariness about China is warranted — and I definitely do! — you can recognize that some people talk about China like it’s a cross between the USSR and the aliens from Independence Day.

So: Greg is parodying a real thing. And a good observation is key; one of my frustrations with late-vintage political comedy is that — as social media poisons the brains of this generation of comedy writers — sharp observations are rare, and well-worn Twitter takes are common. Greg has a not-trite observation, and in the first paragraph, he highlights the real-world touchpoints — TikTok and DeepSeek — to remind readers that he’s talking about a real thing.

Mimicry

Satire should feel kind-of real. You’re making a comedy version of a real thing, so it should resemble the real thing. Greg gets the ominous tone of a Very Serious Editorial bang-on-the-nose; the writing is the style that often appears in the New York Times or The Wall Street Journal. If you’re doing an impression, it helps to look like your subject as much as possible, and in the same way, satire writing should strive to resemble the real thing.

Much of the work Greg does to make a facsimile of a real editorial comes from little details. For example, the stand-alone “The implications for our national security are dire” sentence is exactly what the New York Times would do; they would absolutely put that sentence up top to basically say “this issue is so important that if you don’t read this article, you’re shirking your responsibility as an adult and should have to repeat elementary school.” I also like that the opinions about Chinese food have been scienced-up through attribution to “white papers” and “analysts” — that’s absolutely what this author would do. Plus, writing “laboratory analysis reveals that General Tso's Chicken is delicious” is so much funnier than just writing “General Tso's Chicken is delicious”. And since we happen to be living during the total collapse of academic literature as an objective tool, the author’s bullshit appeals to authority work on a second level.

Absurdity

Satire should resemble a real-world thing, but it shouldn’t be that thing — the difference comes from amping up the absurdity. You have to extrapolate, exaggerate, and amplify, or else you’re just recreating the thing you mean to mock.

But this is key: Your funny elements should stem from things that happened in real life. Satire should be absurd, but it shouldn’t be absurdism — the difference is that absurdism comes out of left field, but satire comes from the thing that’s being mocked. So, when Greg says that Chinese food “undermines mom-and-pop American companies like PepsiCo and Chipotle Mexican Grill,” that’s obviously absurd, because those aren’t mom-and-pop companies. But because the Institute for Culinary Security is just a front for Chipotle, the strangeness is justified, because a company would hide behind “mom-and-pop” language to seem sympathetic. Satire needs to be rational absurdism, if that makes sense.

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Greg’s essay reminded me of something, and I eventually realized what it was: the “mine shaft gap” scene from Dr. Strangelove, one of the great works of political satire of all time. I’ll post the whole scene because it’s a fun watch, but the specific part I’m thinking of starts at 3:36.

General Turgidson’s monologue has the elements I just referenced. There’s an observation — it was the Cold War, people used fear of the Russians to justify everything. There’s mimicry — the phrase “mine shaft gap” is a reference to the “missile gap” that was the fixation of military planners of the time. And there’s absurdity — the whole thing is ridiculous. Plus, as a bonus, there’s that tried-and-true comedy element that’s suitable for all occasions: dick jokes. The guys in the scene just want to bone.

Greg wanted me to let you know that he accepts submissions to his newsletter, and he even pays American money: You can get $40 for a Chortle post. Many of you have already written things for Komedy Klass, so you might want to click the “submissions” link above and see if you can bank 40 large. And next time you attempt satire, remember that all you’re doing is taking something dumb and making it dumber, which pretty much captures what political comedy is.

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