Crow from Poe

I must admit that I got had today. Twice. I am shamefaced, but I shall tell all.

First, I responded to a comment on my friend Priti’s post on Facebook; she’d written about how Andheri’s population was now equal to that of Ireland, and someone else came along saying that Mumbai’s population was half of the US’. I couldn’t fathom this; “what a douche!” I exclaimed, and then spit on my hands, girded my loins and got about searching the demographic data for the USA, Bombay, Andheri and the drunks. Yeah, that means you, Irish. Bloated with self-worth, I went ahead and put the data on the site, being nasty about it as well.

And then, to my utter chagrin, the dude who made that comment and Priti herself patiently told me that it was a joke; “Do v really understand sarcasm??” he asked. I was left with that slight buzzing in the ear that is the tolling of the shame bell.

And then I did it again.

Through the offices of my friend Bahulekar, I came across the mind-blowing website: http://christwire.org. It comes across as an ultra-rightwing Christian that espouses all sorts of fundaentalist ideology: homophobia, anti-feminism, racism, denunciation of Barack Obama, Eddie Veder, Portal 2 and everything – yes, everything – else. The articles are badly written and researched and make the most outrageous claims, stuff that you thought people might be thinking but would shocked to see actually on the Web.

So I thought I’d landed a landmine to write about and dismiss peremptorily. And I proceeded to do so. But a little bird that doesn’t like the shame bell tolling told me to try and Google it. I did. And the bell tolled for me again.

Which is why I came upon this little gem called Poe’s Law. Basically this witer called Nathan Poe posited that it was bloody difficult to tell the difference between genuinely intolerant and rightwing viewpoints and those that parody them. It works both ways: like I did by mistaking satire for the Real McCoy and when satirical sites are mistaken by douchebags for actual rightwing propaganda. The Web is all aflutter with instances of this (but you gotta get off this blog and look for them yourself, you lazy tub o’lard). I am merely the most recent victim.

And so, for all that I try to write funny stuff, I went all “Life is stern and life is earnest” on that site. I got had. Bloody bugger!