The A.V. Club is owned by The Onion; however, the site is not specifically satirical. They are more of an entertainment news site, though they maintain a decidedly humorous slant. They might have satire in their Comedy section, but it’s not the ‘Gotchya!’ sort of satire. Looking at three random articles: Insane Clown Posse’s FBI lawsuit thrown out; Juggalos are…
On first glance, most of the headlines used over at The Free Thought Project seem designed to incite a certain emotion, mostly indignant anger — which is reason enough to give us pause on TFTP. We're not sure how to categorize this site, just yet. The issues they write about are complex, but real. We just have this nagging feeling that there's something else going on. Bias? Probably.
Counter Current News is a fringe news source. They’ve reported on the murder of an Anonymous hacktivist Abu Shehadeh and even on the Banksy arrest hoax. The one post they have marked “satire” is actually a real article about a group of Muslims making a satirical spoof video on ISIS. While some of the stories might seem like humor, (e.g.,…
We love The Platain. They’re funny. They have videos. And, for our purposes, they made it easy to determine their satirical nature. If you cannot glean their comedy from their videos (like “Plantain Action News: Amendment 2: The Plantain Gets High!” or “Traffic Fatalities Increase 9% According To Article I Read On My Phone While Driving,” for example), they have…
thehardtimes.net is, thankfully, forthcoming about their satirical nature. From their About page: The Hard Times is a very real punk news site that you should not question. Just absorb the information as truth and move on. The historic satire site was founded in December 1982 at 171A studios while the founding members were eating broken glass with The Bad Brains.…
The Washington Times, not to be confused with The Times, has been around since the early 80s. Many consider it a right-of-center counterpoint to The Washington Post. [Editorial Note: In our haste, we referred to Washington Times as a “left-of-center” when it is, as the rest of this post states, actually considered right-of-center.] The magazine had heavy ties with Republican…
With their site’s tagline being “News Written By You,” it should be fairly obvious. But if that doesn’t tip you off, and you find headlines such as “Hogwarts becomes second free school closed in a week”, then take a look at their FAQ page: NewsBiscuit was launched in September 2006, with a view to increasing the amount of British satire…
From their website: Tech Times covers news on technological innovation and how business and technology intersects, influences and impacts different markets and industries to bring about cultural transformation in our lives, and how that is relevant in our increasingly interconnected world. There may be some funny joke-posts, especially on April 1st, but aside from that, the articles here are true.…
Delightful Knowledge is only moderately delightful. A couple of their articles, namely, the article “NASA Confirms Earth Will Experience 6 Days of Total Darkness in December 2014!,” cite Huzler.com as a source. Huzler.com has the following disclaimer in their footers: “Huzlers.com is a combination of real shocking news and satirical entertainment to keep its visitors in a state of disbelief.”…
The title of the site itself shows that it's trying too hard. The site's design, however, shows that their web designers aren't trying hard enough. But is it real? Or satire?
UPDATED REVIEW 1-12-2017: Our previous review of If You Only News came when we had a simple binary ranking system. Our conclusion has been updated to match the new system. You’ll be seeing a lot of updated reviews as we continue to comb through the database. They’ve routinely used ClickBait-style headlines and some information “massaging” to prop up their anti-GOP…
Anything with “newstimesdaily.com” affixed to the URL is Clickbait/JokeLink. Anything. No . . . we really mean it: ANYTHING.
“Real or Satire Clicked on www.boredomtherapy.com and What They Discovered Will Shock and Awe You Into New Stratospheres of Amazeballsness.” This should give you some idea as to what Boredom Therapy is: clickbait bordering on emoterrorism. To their credit, they’re hardly at the emo-terror-levels of its role-model — Upworthy. But even their website tagline is consistent with the tactic: “Trending…
Viral Worthy can’t even be original enough to come up with a better name for itself. It’s another Upworthy clone. Another in a long list of Upworthy clones. Viral Worthy basically scours the ‘Net for something that is “amazing” and “unbelievable” and “shocking” and re-post it. An example would be their post: 33 AMAZINGLY USEFUL WEBSITES YOU NEVER KNEW EXISTED.…
Landover Baptist Church is another example of Poe’s Law, similar to Christwire. Fully immersed in the joke, you are knee-deep in muck and mire of this extremely conservative “church.” There is no sign of the site breaking character, even on their ‘Godly Terms of Service’ page, which features paragraph upon paragraph of semi-legal gobbledygook. That is until you get to…
We almost feel bad reviewing nbc-news.net. Undoubtedly, seasoned RoS visitors wouldn't fall for the site's cheap tactics. Putting this here kinda feels like we're insulting our readership. But . . . someone submitted it, so we're obliged to review it.
Names are important! This is ever true when discussing a so-called newsite. Lapine is a real word (French, I believe) but it’s also the fictional language spoken by rabbits in the 1972 novel Watership Down. A Novel. You should read it.. From their About page: The Lapine is all about poking people and things that deserve to be poked. It…
So you found a new medical site — that’s great! But . . . should you follow their medical advice? Answer these three questions before you do:
I must confess: I have a soft spot for jefferly.com. Expect funny observations about life, reposts of funny webcomics, and commentaries on U.S. political goings-on. We mark this one “Bias” because, well . . . he has one. So expect a fair bit of color.
