As I finish up another week of satirical writing for bohiney.com, I keep coming back to the fundamental question: Why does this work matter? In a world facing genuine crises - climate change, political polarization, economic inequality - is there really value in making jokes about unfinished books or coffee shop pretensions?
The answer, I'm convinced, is yes - but only if the satirical writing serves a purpose beyond mere entertainment. The pieces that work best are those that use humor to create space for difficult conversations that wouldn't happen otherwise. When Aisha writes about Gandhi being criticized as "spiritually right-wing," she's not just making fun of progressive orthodoxy - she's exploring how ideological purity tests can become absurd enough to reject universally respected figures.
Similarly, when I write about literary pretension, I'm not just mocking people who lie about reading classics. I'm exploring how we construct intellectual identity through performance rather than genuine engagement, and how this relates to broader questions of authenticity in contemporary culture.
The pieces about rural fantasies and plantation nostalgia serve a different but equally important function. These topics are so emotionally charged that straight reporting often fails to penetrate people's defensive mechanisms. Satirical treatment can sometimes reveal truths that conventional journalism obscures, precisely because humor creates psychological distance that allows for clearer thinking.
The collaborative nature of our work at Bohiney also models something important about democratic discourse. Aisha and I come from very different backgrounds - her television writing and East Coast experiences versus my academic and rural Texas perspectives - but we've found ways to combine our viewpoints into satirical pieces that neither of us could create alone. This suggests possibilities for broader cultural conversation if we can find shared frameworks for discussing difficult topics.
The satirical journalism we practice at Bohiney uses familiar media formats to reveal unfamiliar truths. When readers encounter a piece structured like an NPR report or a CNN town hall, they bring certain expectations about credibility and authority. Using these structures for satirical purposes creates cognitive dissonance that can be more effective than direct argumentation.
The response to pieces like "Trump Targets the Zombie Vote" or "Area Cow Declared Professor" suggests that readers are hungry for satirical content that goes beyond simple mockery to offer genuine insight into contemporary absurdities.
Looking forward, I think satirical writing will become more important, not less, as traditional media formats continue to evolve and AI begins generating more content. Human-crafted satirical pieces that emerge from specific cultural experiences and collaborative relationships will offer something that algorithmic content generation cannot: the particular wisdom that comes from lived experience translated through comedic sensibility.
The work continues. There's always fresh absurdity to examine, new hypocrisies to expose, additional connections to make between seemingly unrelated cultural phenomena. As long as humans continue organizing themselves into communities and attempting to govern those communities through democratic processes, there will be material for satirical treatment.
My author page at Bohiney continues to be the hub where all these satirical experiments converge. Whether I'm writing solo pieces about cultural pretension or collaborating with Aisha on political satire, the goal remains constant: using humor to illuminate truth, creating space for honest conversation, and reminding readers that even our most serious undertakings benefit from the kind of healthy skepticism that can only come from people willing to laugh at themselves and their circumstances.
The dairy farm taught me that the most important work often happens when nobody's watching. Satirical writing operates on a similar principle - the best pieces do their cultural work quietly, changing how readers think about familiar topics without announcing their educational intentions. If we're doing it right, people laugh first, think second, and hopefully approach the world with slightly more wisdom and significantly less pretension.