Lately, I have been having a bit of fun with the media by posting “Keith Jackass Exclusive” stories on the blog.
Most people get the joke. An alarming number don’t think it is a joke, but reckon I’m trying to join the ranks of the tabloid hacks. In spite of my last article in this vein – about “Red Rodgers” being on his way to Russia – saying that Jared Kushner and Vladimir Putin were ahead of him for the job a lot of people just aren’t getting that I’m kidding.
Those people need help. Serious help.
But I understand how they got here, and it’s not me who looks bad when they make that kind of mistake.
They can’t tell a real tabloid tale from a fake one, and that’s sort of the point.
When someone like me can write the most outlandish stuff – Brendan wanting to take his tanning machine to Moscow with him, and accepting the job conditional on that he doesn’t have to face Sevco – and people don’t know the difference between that and a real Keith Jackson piece … well I’m going to suggest that it’s not my articles that have something wrong with them.
The reason I’ve been doing these pieces lately is simple enough; it’s a sensible reaction to the media’s own nonsense.
Before I started writing about this stuff full time, I would get very angry over a lot of what was in the press. I still do.
But now I find myself laughing at it more than I used to, especially as some of it is so blatantly ridiculous.
I want everyone to treat them the same way, which is why I intend to keep on writing the Keith Jackass articles and making each one more ridiculous than the last. It’s an interesting exercise in seeing how far from reality you can stray whilst people still believe that it was published in an actual tabloid. They are a laughing stock now, and that’s definitely all to the good, and the thing of it is, it wasn’t us who turned them into a joke.
They managed that all by themselves.
It is almost offensive that they treat their audiences with such naked contempt.
It is right that some of us respond the same way to it.
Indeed, some of what they publish – especially about Gerrard’s start in the job and how brilliant and dazzling it’s been – well, I could spoof that over and over again and still never come close to hitting on how deranged some of their actual coverage is.
I am not the only one who does this, of course; if you’re not reading The Clumpany yet start now, and shame on you for not doing so sooner. Nobody does this stuff quite like him; he is a legend, and time makes him better and better at it.
If you’re not reading Pat Anderson, who’s blog Jabba The Agnivore is a recent find for me and is a pure joy, then you certainly should be.
The E-Tims Diary is frequently lacerating, and hilarious to boot.
There cannot be another club, anywhere, who’s fans produce so many blogs targeting the media with such withering writing. There’s a reason for that. Our press is beyond rank, and parody is the only logical, the only rational, response to how bad they are, how biased is their work, how craven and cowardly they come over in it.
They deserve everything they get.
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