The Black Sheep
O V E F R E E. R “S ..LIK PRI E LO NG JAM SING Y ” BE OUR ING SH REN IT AM ED.
Vol. 6, Issue 6
THE COLLEGE NEWSPAPER THAT'S ACTUALLY ABOUT COLLEGE
2/27/14 - 3/5/14
25% OF STUDENTS READING SATIRICAL PAPER TAKE IT SERIOUSLY DAVID ZIRINSKY WROTE THIS “The problem with satire is that everyone takes you seriously. I said, ‘yeah guys let’s surrender to the Germans,’ and next thing I know people are laying down their arms. The next day the Nazis are marching in Paris.” – Charles de Gaulle Biology society and environment sophomore Alex Johnston was ecstatic after leaving his Thursday afternoon lecture. He just couldn’t wait to tell his friends the news. Running home, he burst through the door and shouted, “Can you believe this!? The Jamaican Bobsled Team won gold at the Olympics, this is unbelievable!” Sadly, his friends didn’t have the heart to tell him he was duped. “It was pretty funny to see how Alex was believing anything he saw in black and white. We couldn’t tell him he was reading a satirical paper,” Alex’s roommate Adam later told The Black Sheep. “Come on, we all know that Alex isn’t what you’d call the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, so it was funny to let him run with it.” However, what would normally be a practical joke for Adam soon went down a slippery slope. “We started feeding Alex made-up news stories from the least credible internet sources imaginable, and this kid just ate it up.” Adam continued. “Like, we put an article on the fridge titled ‘Cops to search 412 Apartments With Drug Dogs,’ and Alex immediately flushed his pot down the toilet.” Unbeknownst to Alex and his roommates, this trend is nothing new. Anthropology professor Jordan Nelson from the University of Minnesota said, “From the first radio broadcast of War of the Worlds to all the Facebook articles about Obama being a terrorist, people can be real dumbasses sometimes.” One satirical writer was able to tell The Black Sheep his dirty secret. “As a satirical writer I’m always asked ‘how do you quote President Kaler?’” local satire writer David Notzirinsky explained. “Sadly they don’t realize you can put quotes around anything and say someone said it. Surprisingly, you can lie on paper the same way you lie to your girlfriend about not sleeping around.” While 25% of people reading a satirical piece will not pick up on hyperbole, modern science is trying to address this problem. Satire expert Bob Larson said, “Oftentimes people don’t get that satire isn’t real. Hell I’m sure someone ate a baby after Jonathan Swift wrote A Modest Proposal.” “I’ve developed a bullshit radar for readers,” computer science Senior
Louie Treml said. “This amazing program will sense when bullshit levels exceed the normal Fox News levels and get to National Enquirer levels, or even The Onion levels.” While Louie hopes to bring this to market soon, the advanced technology found within it means the device is potentially years away from being available to the general public. “This product just can’t come soon enough for the masses. Lately we’ve seen that the general population can’t think for themselves,” political science professor Brandon Summers said. He seemed very concerned with
an alarming statistic adding, “I read just the other day that 5/4 Americans have trouble with fractions.” “I think the saddest part about people believing anything in black and white is that I invented a country called ‘Hottadogstand’ in the Middle East. I then proceeded to write a political science paper about their oppression of women and free speech and my professor wanted to publish my work,” an anonymous student said to avoid exposing academic dishonesty. “I just did it as a joke and she believed it even after making exorbitant claims.”
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YOU ONLY DO IT BECAUSE YOU LOVE THEM… AND BECAUSE YOU’RE EVIL.
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