Pasquinade
Like it or not, popularity has value. And whether you liked it or not, the satirical website 'The Portadown News' was popular enough to make an Internet Celebrity of its editor, Newton Emerson. The site's popularity has fuelled Newt's ascent from A3 to A4 sized newspapers, to ranting on Radio 5 Live, and ultimately summiting the acme of columnist fame: presenting the opinion piece on 'Hearts and Minds'. Success in the Established (and lucrative) Media was at the expense of New (and unpaid) Media, and after 200 issues the Portadown News is, sadly, no longer published.
What can fill this satirical void? 'The Vacuum' does its bit, but the Belfast based distribution of a vacuum within a void not only confounds the laws of physics, but restricts the readership to the provincial capital. What's needed is a regularly updated, easily accessible web page that bored office workers can sneak a peep at to fill the few minutes before clocking out. And according to Slugger O'Toole, 'The Shankill Moaner' could be just that filler. But, as is peculiar to this part of the world, it may leave some readers either half full or half angry.
The author of The Shankill Moaner illustrates his comedy credentials by adopting a pseudonym that combines a character from a book that was funny in 1979, and a tonic wine that makes you think you're funny. Slartibuckfast79 has sporadically published 15 issues of the Moaner since September, and has gathered a fair few readers judging by the numbers displayed by the page view counters. However, while Mr Emerson's waspish broadsides blasted all who take perverse pleasure in being offended, Mr 79's sights are aimed on a single target. He freely admits 'The Shankill Moaner' was created to lampoon 'The Shankill Mirror', and (judging from the rest of the Moaner's content) to take a pop at Orangism, Ballymena, and Paisley. Considering he's mining such a rich vein of material it's no surprise that there are sometime two editions a week, but it's a shame some of the jokes are wearing a little thin; regular ridicule of Ballymena inhabitants becomes a little bit May McFetridge, and the arse has been torn out of Paul Berry jokes. It's also easy to comment on the relative attractiveness of 'Love Ulster' women when you're hiding behind a Jeremy Beadle avatar. In fact, this highlights another fundamental difference between The Moaner and The Portadown News: Newton Emerson did not disguise his identity. But then again, Newton didn't crack jokes so exclusively one-sided that he was in danger of a kicking from those reading with orange-tinted glasses.
And Slarti receives the odd HTML boot too: since there’s no way (yet) to physically hurt someone over the internet, readers are forced to take out their hostilities on one another via forum posts. And quite often, these are inadvertently more amusing than the Moaner itself: from allegations of the editor's paedophilia to Jesuit Commandos, the forum is fertile ground for the inevitable slanging match that accompanies Northern Ireland politics. Eventually the Sutton Index raises its 3523 heads, and discussion descends into endless whataboutery perpetuated by a bunch of whiny bigots with no real sense of reality, gathered together to continue their self-destructive spiral towards nothingness. Issue 3 is a corker in this respect.
Nevertheless, there's the odd gag in The Shankill Moaner that would even make the good Doctor smile, and considering there's not much satire elsewhere, this will have to do in the meantime. Northern Ireland's brand of dark humour is notoriously difficult to export, so we're our own best audience: enjoy it before it becomes a thing of the past. And if you still can't extract any joy from the Moaner, you have three options:
1. Don't read it
2. Write something better yourself
3. Stop moaning
(The latest edition of the Shankill Moaner is here, or go here and search for "Moaner", or just fucking Google it)
What can fill this satirical void? 'The Vacuum' does its bit, but the Belfast based distribution of a vacuum within a void not only confounds the laws of physics, but restricts the readership to the provincial capital. What's needed is a regularly updated, easily accessible web page that bored office workers can sneak a peep at to fill the few minutes before clocking out. And according to Slugger O'Toole, 'The Shankill Moaner' could be just that filler. But, as is peculiar to this part of the world, it may leave some readers either half full or half angry.
The author of The Shankill Moaner illustrates his comedy credentials by adopting a pseudonym that combines a character from a book that was funny in 1979, and a tonic wine that makes you think you're funny. Slartibuckfast79 has sporadically published 15 issues of the Moaner since September, and has gathered a fair few readers judging by the numbers displayed by the page view counters. However, while Mr Emerson's waspish broadsides blasted all who take perverse pleasure in being offended, Mr 79's sights are aimed on a single target. He freely admits 'The Shankill Moaner' was created to lampoon 'The Shankill Mirror', and (judging from the rest of the Moaner's content) to take a pop at Orangism, Ballymena, and Paisley. Considering he's mining such a rich vein of material it's no surprise that there are sometime two editions a week, but it's a shame some of the jokes are wearing a little thin; regular ridicule of Ballymena inhabitants becomes a little bit May McFetridge, and the arse has been torn out of Paul Berry jokes. It's also easy to comment on the relative attractiveness of 'Love Ulster' women when you're hiding behind a Jeremy Beadle avatar. In fact, this highlights another fundamental difference between The Moaner and The Portadown News: Newton Emerson did not disguise his identity. But then again, Newton didn't crack jokes so exclusively one-sided that he was in danger of a kicking from those reading with orange-tinted glasses.
And Slarti receives the odd HTML boot too: since there’s no way (yet) to physically hurt someone over the internet, readers are forced to take out their hostilities on one another via forum posts. And quite often, these are inadvertently more amusing than the Moaner itself: from allegations of the editor's paedophilia to Jesuit Commandos, the forum is fertile ground for the inevitable slanging match that accompanies Northern Ireland politics. Eventually the Sutton Index raises its 3523 heads, and discussion descends into endless whataboutery perpetuated by a bunch of whiny bigots with no real sense of reality, gathered together to continue their self-destructive spiral towards nothingness. Issue 3 is a corker in this respect.
Nevertheless, there's the odd gag in The Shankill Moaner that would even make the good Doctor smile, and considering there's not much satire elsewhere, this will have to do in the meantime. Northern Ireland's brand of dark humour is notoriously difficult to export, so we're our own best audience: enjoy it before it becomes a thing of the past. And if you still can't extract any joy from the Moaner, you have three options:
1. Don't read it
2. Write something better yourself
3. Stop moaning
(The latest edition of the Shankill Moaner is here, or go here and search for "Moaner", or just fucking Google it)
