UnNews talk:Anti-maskers ignore Halloween
Hey I'm just going to do the pee review here instead of using the formula okay?
Cutting down on text=[edit source]
I like the tone of your argument and the kind of language you use. It is very evocative and sets a good tone. Towards the end of the article you become less wordy but in the beginning I think it is overdone. Let's take the second sentence:
For millennia, mankind has feared this most unholy of times, and has reacted by creating and perfecting traditions to protect us from evil apparitions, demons and other unspeakable monsters that could bring harm to our bodies and souls.
That's a pretty long sentence. I'd recommend shaving off a little or at least dividing it into two sentences. If you try to chop them into two then you have to add more humour though. There should be a reasonable humour to sentence ratio in any article. So to give you an example of transforming, here would be shaving things down:
For millennia, mankind has feared this unholy time by protecting us from unspeakable monsters that harm our bodies and souls.
You should only have one or two of the following in each sentence: "that could bring", "an example of", "that has reacted by". All of those are fine but when you put in three cases of padding in one sentence it really runs on. So shave some of it out or cut them into two or more sentences and add more humour. Here would be cutting the sentences (with a smaller amount of shaving)
For millennia, mankind has feared these unholy times and has learnt to deal with these evil apparitions by fighting back in the tradition of ghost hunters. They take on demons and unspeakable monsters that would harm our bodies and souls if people like Buffy the vampire slayer didn't get to them first.
There is a little bit of shaving and I moved the descriptive second part into its own sentence. As we have two sentences I threw in the buffy the vampire slayer to add a small dose of humour.
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You've really set the scene well and we know the tone of the article so the last sentence of the first paragraph isn't really necessary.
Now more than ever is the time to take the proper precautions to protect yourselves from supernatural evil.
I would recommend you either trim it down, cut it out or inject some humour into it (like give an example of some funny and macabre example of supernatural evil at the time).
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The second paragraph have a lot of long sentences with mild humour and so I recommend cuts and/or humour injection. In the third paragraph you might expand on how it is that jack o lanterns are supposed to protect us.
The toilet paper section is funny. Try to morph it into an absolute zinger. What did he wipe his ass with instead? Can you inject the covid toilet paper shortage more into the article? Might you mention one example of a really over the top prank to make the mild pranks seem even more ridiculous?
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The trump paragraph is in one way the best because there are so many humorous references. But at the same time there is such huge potential for expansion. Trump tends to deny things that are obviously true and invent outlandish lies. Try to add something like that, he could deny things like that trick or treating is even a real tradition or that Halloween was made up by socialists. The ghosts coming from Ireland could be part of a larger socialist European conspiracy. The dog crap in Oregon should include violence, either the police cracking open the kids heads for just putting a little dog crap on the doorsteps or the kids escalating into much more extreme violence, like from dog crap to setting people's houses on fire. The economy going to hell is also a great moment for humour where trump can blame his own covid mismanagement/economic issues on the supernatural. In other words its great you've thrown in a bunch of puns linking recent newsworthy titbits into Halloween with a little humour but consider expaning on one or more of them by either giving more outlandish and more humorous examples or turning one of those into its own entire section.
I don't really get the hoard candy joke. I would recommend transforming it into something more outlandish or expanding on it. The black lights matter is a little wonky. "Black nights matter"? It is a great opportunity to humour and you don't have to add a lot of text to take it one step further.
The Baron trump part, you ought to play up more about the fact that he got COVID. The link isn't clear enough (and a great place to add humour).
The last sentence is confusing because Trump spent the first part of the article railing about it but at the end just dismissed it. Now he does do that in real life but only after he realises that his strategy isn't working or some event happens that makes him look stupid and then he will just deny he has said something at all. I would recommend inserting some kind of moment where he looks stupid and now all of a sudden denies the haunting is a big deal (even though he was railing against it earlier). Consider making him go TOTALLY over the top ballistic about the haunting blaming it for everything wrong with the world, then some event that makes him look stupid or that he was wrong, then then swiftly denying its a problem, that he ever said anything and even praising the ghosts.
Opportunities for humour[edit source]
As I go through the article I've noted many golden opportunities for humour that isn't followed up. Take for example the wiccan health organisation or the centre for disease control. So many jokes could come out of that. They could be an additional sentence that injects hilarity or even a small addition to the sentence with an ironic comment. It could be something demeaning to wiccans or those suffering from diseases (like talking about wiccans having very heavy periods at the time) or something less crude like how things are so bad the wiccans who are normally for alternative medicine are teaming up with the CDC to find a way to fight it. Also Friday the 13th is a great opportunity to add humour.
Anti maskers is a place to add much stronger humour.
The fat kid is mildly humorous but it is a great place to add more humour. Take for example: imparting wisdom to a fat kid stuffing his face with Halloween candy his parents had intended for trick-or-treaters. Or something like that.
The Melania trump quote, you might want to make it grammatically incorrect to play on her foreignness.
Give examples of how the houses were haunted (absurd funny things that happened).
Over all[edit source]
I like the concept, most articles always need a lot of work on the concept and this is one article where that is NOT the case. I like the tone and the evocative feel of the article. You've also brought in great funny references. What I'd consider is cutting down the wordiness in the beginning or cutting them into more sentences and injecting humour and expanding on a few of the humour gold moments that are missed and expanding a little more on a few examples in the trump section. Some of those sentences only need a tiny bit more to elevate the humour. I think the Trump total change in attitude opportunity is too good of one to miss.