Andy Borowitz baffles me. Just...Here, look at this. President of the Harvard Lampoon. Acted in a Woody Allen movie. Voted #1 Twitter account in the world -- the world! -- in a 2011 TIME Magazine poll. The Daily Beast calls him "America's satire king." Recently hired by The New Yorker to be their premiere in-house humorist. How--how?!--is he so fucking unfunny? Did his personal history and all his accolades just phase in from another dimension? Is it just some massive troll job?
Look at this: "In a profile on CBS News Sunday Morning he was called 'one of the funniest people in America.'" And then look at this: his archive of contributions to The New Yorker, leading with the "Borowitz Report" Satirical News Stories he has written for them since they hired him to do so last month. The first one has Mitt Romney picking Rich Uncle Pennybags from Monopoly as his running mate. It has nearly 7,000 Facebook shares. There's one about NBC charging people to watch the Olympics without spoilers or Ryan Seacrest (Ha ha ha ha!) that has fifteen thousand Facebook shares. What. Is. Going. On.
His Twitter feed is even worse, because at least you can avoid The New Yorker -- or at worst, skip to the David Grann piece, if there is one, and then just put the issue back on the toilet tank, where it will lie undisturbed until it gets recycled or donated to the library. Borowitz' tweets, on the other hand, are incessant and prone to garnering tons of retweets and thus clogging up Twitter with the most hacky, obvious, Leno-on-a-bad-day reactions you could ever imagine to the news of the day.
Like this:
Jenna Jameson endorses Romney: "He's the only person who's assumed more positions than I have."
— Andy Borowitz (@BorowitzReport) August 3, 2012
And this:
Michele Bachmann: "All Americans mourn the passing of the author of the Declaration of Independence, George Jefferson."
— Andy Borowitz (@BorowitzReport) July 25, 2012
And this...
If the Internet is any guide, the two things pro-gun people hate most are 1) background check and 2) spell check.
— Andy Borowitz (@BorowitzReport) July 24, 2012
...being followed two weeks later by this (Andy "Aaron" Borowitz "Sorkin"):
If the Internet is any guide, a lot of people who are pro-gun are also anti-spelling.
— Andy Borowitz (@BorowitzReport) August 6, 2012
And this, which I will remind you was written in July 2012:
People with a Bluetooth look like they're communicating with Douchebag Mission Control.
— Andy Borowitz (@BorowitzReport) July 20, 2012
Which all adds up to a first for Twitter Twuesday: here is a Twitter feed that is intended to be funny, but succeeds only in being the hackiest, sub-Borscht Belt piece of crap on the planet. But then entire legions of people -- your friends, your neighbors, maybe even you! -- think it is brilliant, laugh-out-loud, tell-your-friends hilarity. Which is itself funny in its own infuriating way.
If I were unemployed, I would probably just create a "Fake Borowitz Reports" Tumblr and watch the Virals roll in (...the direction of Andy Borowitz, while I sit around with Andy Borowitz' hackiness serving as the Snuffleupagus to my Big Bird, incredulously sputtering, "CAN'T YOU PEOPLE SEE THIS???"). But I have a job, so instead I'll just close out this edition of Twitter Twuesday with some Fake Borowitz Report tweets of my own. See if you can tell the difference between these and the real thing:
Tea Party to Gabby Douglas: Bring back the medal, but leave your blackness in London.
Kim Jong-Un marries another dictator: Martha Stewart!
Romney releases tax returns, with shocking revelation: "I am the Hamburglar."
Chick-fil-a unveils new slogan: "Hate Mor Gays."
Amazing footage from NASA's Curiosity rover reveals Mars sick of Snooki, too.
Syria's al-Assad emerges from hiding with first public statement in months: "I support R-Pattz."
NBC to air footage from Ancient Greek Olympics in prime time, tells viewers to avoid spoilers in history books.
Mitt sez: "I pee in the pool too."
Olympics beer bottle thrower son of guy who threw shoe at President Bush.
Romney reveals new tax plan: Let's tax Octomom!
Natalie Portman gets married, Jar-Jar Binks officiates.
I could seriously do this all day. It's pretty simple: Just take a current event or celebrity non-event and filter it through the reptilian part of a third-tier MADtv writer's brain. Andy Borowitz, I nominate you as the third candidate for the Most Unintentionally Funny Twitter Account. I eagerly await you turning that honor into a "joke" about Justin Bieber. It could be no other way.
For more unintentionally funny Twitter accounts, check out our Twitter Twuesday section.
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