User:Bizzeebeever/An open email to Wikia
As one of Uncyclopedia's regular users, I was mildly confounded this week when I saw Wikia's newest scheme to deprive us of both readers and contributors: a CONTENT WARNING that fully obscures the actual content from new visitors, while absurdly characterizing us as a stunted version of Encyclopedia Dramatica. To say that we are displeased with it is an understatement along the lines of "the Greek economy is a bit skittish, Bob", or "You know, Susie, kittens dislike being raped with hammers".
Of course, I shouldn't have been confounded. Wikia's opinion towards us had been a laughably open secret, long before I arrived. I truly feared that the CONTENT WARNING was Wikia's reaction to our massive cache of shock pornography, or our merciless bullying of children and minorities, or our relentless libeling of celebrities (and our penchant for redoubling our attacks if they protest), or perhaps our long-standing policy of ignoring copyright laws and profiting from our abuse thereof. (I must note that I pray you are capable of detecting sarcasm).
But, no; from your replies to several of our other users, it appears that this... this abomination is being foisted upon us as part of the first stage in Wikia's campaign... to make the Internet safe for stupid people. A sampling of Wikia's tone-deaf screed follows:
| “ | We get a significant number of complaints from web searchers who run across Uncyclopedia and don't realize that they've landed on a parody site. The result is them sending in angry and otherwise upset emails to us regarding the content on Uncyc....We strongly believe that this warning will indicate to these folks that the content they're about to see is not intended to be encyclopedic in the way they're expecting. | ” |
So... you are saying... that you are hiding Uncyclopedia's "violence, sexual suggestion, [and] dark humor" from new visitors... to save yourself the trouble of answering angry emails from idiots? This, the height of laziness, from a corporation whose founders and executives strongly agitate against even the specter of "government censorship" (PIPA, SOPA, CISPA), on the principle that it is a cancerous threat to free speech? Contradict yourself, much?
And you follow that up with this gem:
| “ | On the flip side, we also believe the warning won't stop anyone who wants to read or contribute to Uncyc. | ” |
Gosh-a-golly, but you're right again, Mister Cleaver! When I run across some new website with a strongly-worded disclaimer that vaguely hints I'm about to enter a world of midget-torture and bloody, dismembered Pokemon, the first thing I do is click the "Yessirree, sign me up for THAT shit!" button.
Oh, wait. No I don't. I go somewhere else, because I don't frequent websites so debauched that they require a fucking disclaimer. I would venture that most of our potential readers don't, either.
Uncyclopedia has always been (and, hopefully, always will be), intended to convey parody and satire. This new CONTENT WARNING is a bright and shining indication that you at Wikia lack a fundamental understanding of how those concepts function. Pro tip: DISCLAIMERS ARE AN ANATHEMA TO PARODY. Did Jonathan Swift preface A Modest Proposal with the disclaimer "THIS IS SATIRE -- PLEASE, NO LAWSUITS FROM MOTHERS OF EATEN CHILDREN"? Did Ambrose Bierce preface The Devil's Dictionary with "THIS IS A WORK OF HUMOR, NOT A BOOK OF SPELLS. SORRY, SATANISTS!"? How about Voltaire, in ANYTHING he wrote? Moliere? Alexander Pope? Edgar Allen Poe? Oscar Wilde? Mark Twain? (Honestly, I've never read any of those highbrow fuckers, because I'm an idiot. Did any of them use disclaimers?)
To be slightly more contemporary, does This Is Spinal Tap (or any other "mockumentary") contain a disclaimer to shield the minds of idiots from potential perturbation? In the case that classic "literature" and "cinema" have not yet penetrated the hermetically-sealed chamber which encloses Wikia, how about TheOnion.com? Tell me, do you see any disclaimers? The only "disclaimer" I can see is a tiny line of type at the bottom of the main page which reads, "The Onion is not intended for readers under 18 years of age."
Can you make a wild guess as to why?
It's because shouting "THIS IS A PARODY" kills the fucking joke. One of the joys of satire and parody is coming to the realization that it is such, on your own (which, incidentally, is why the smirkingly self-aware, ham-fisted antics of such professional hacks as Jay Leno, Jimmy Fallon and Dane Cook are so easy to hate). To be prosaic, a disclaimer "removes any sense of innuendo or sarcasm...which might actually make you think, and will also insult your intelligence at the same time." Disclaimers are for idiots, and not just standard idiots, but the sort of idiots who misunderstand the concepts of "fire hot", "microwave kill poodle", and "eating McDonalds hamburger is like fucking heart-artery with dildo made of lard."
I'm quite sure you will only lightly skim this email, as "reading gibberish from an entitled, sweaty neckbeard on the subjects of parody and free speech" is pretty far behind "driving a wooden stake through my genitalia" on your List of Shit to Do Today. So I shall sum up my voluminous rant with two simple questions: is Wikia really made up of the sort of colorless cretins who only take a shit if the lawyers stowed in their hip pockets shout "Ok, Jim, we had the toilet sign a release form! You are cleared for ass-to-seat interface!"? Or are you going to have some faith in the intelligence of the average Internet user, and refrain from driving away our contributors and readers with a misguided effort to make the Internet safe for grandmothers with malfunctioning pacemakers?
(Signed),
Entitled, Sweaty Neckbeard