Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/UnNews:Thai anarchists: diplomats acted improperly
UnNews:Thai anarchists: diplomats acted improperly[edit]
This is boots-on-the-ground truth in nonsense news irony. What to do for a VFH?
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Fear Not! John Lydon is here to Pee all over you! If he hasn't reviewed it |
I'll give this one a go since its been in que for 2 months now --—John Lydon 14:09, June 9, 2010 (UTC)
| Humour: | 3 | I'll start out by saying that I've never heard of Thai anarchists and, judging by the amount of time this article has set waiting to be reviewed, I'm guessing not many others have either. At first read of the article, I honestly didn't know how to review this because I was completely lost through the entire thing. I then decided to research thai anarchists. After reading several news articles, I came back to your article and the humor was much more obvious. Unfortunately, most people aren't going to take the time to research an article they are preparing to read. That, in a nutshell, is your humor problem.
You have chosen an obscure topic to write on. While there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, you have to keep in mind that not many people know whats going on in Thailand and the humor has to be blatently obvious. Your subtle jokes like "The Red Shirt protesters have massed on the street in the heart of Bangkok’s tourist hippie area of Khao San Road, which has been overrun by anarchists, armed to the teeth with war weapons and live ammunition" were completely lost on me in the first read through. After researching and discovering that the red shirt protesters were adamentally non violent, I understood. But, as I said before, not many people are going to research the article they are about to read. I think you need to look at the article from the point of view of someone who has no clue what the Thailand protests are about. I would also suggest reviewing some of the featured UnNews articles on obscure topics to see how they made it funny. this is a good example. Pay close attention to how they take obscure information and tie it into something that the majority of people can relate to. Now that I've gotten all that out of the way, I'll comment on what you actually have here. After reading this article 10 or 11 times, I was finally able to put my finger on exactly what I think the problem is. This article is a wonderfully written news piece. It's actually much better than what my local paper puts out. However, Uncyclopedia is all about humor. I get the feeling that you wrote a very solid news report and then went back through and attempted to funny it up here and there. I would really advise approaching the topic with a specific idea of how to poke fun of the whole situation (because thats what UnNews is all about) and adhere to it strictly throughout the entire article. Let me expand on that for the sake of clarity. If I were to write an article on an obscure and on the surface unfunny topic such as the discovery of photosynthesis, a joke about how chlorophyll turns sunlight into Jack Daniels isn't going to land for most people because they probably don't know what chlorophyll actually is. On the other hand, if I made the whole article revolve around the concept of plants being alcoholics my joke has a much better chance of landing because everyone can relate to it. With an obscure topic like you have chosen, making it funny is much more difficult than the usual assignment, but can pay huge dividends if done right. |
| Concept: | 6 | As I previously stated, you made a difficult road for yourself by choosing a topic that is unknown to most. This has an upside and a downside. the downside is that the topic has no comedic value on it's face. For example an article about Michael Jackson visiting a childrens hospital is already funny before you even write anything. This isn't the case with your topic. The upside is, not many people attempt to tackle difficult topics like this one. So every joke you make is going to be fresh. Using our Michael Jackson example, in order to make it funny, I would have to come up with interesting new ways of calling Michael a pedophile because its been done to death. With your topic, pretty much any joke is going to be fresh. |
| Prose and formatting: | 8 | From a writing standpoint, I think you did a terrific job. As I stated before, this could pass as a legit news article. I think you really captured the feel of an authentic news report. Very well done. |
| Images: | 5 | The image is relevant and fits well. My problem is with the caption. Once again, I feel that you stuck to closely to the truth and missed an oppurtunity to inject some humor. Don't be afraid to get a little random with your captions. Something like "A crowd of red shirt protestors swarm the public restrooms in Thailand after an outbreak of bad tacos" has absoultely nothing to do with the article itself but it adds humor. Maybe consider coming up with a crazy caption for the picture and then basing the entire premise of the article on that. |
| Miscellaneous: | 5.5 | Average Score |
| Final Score: | 27.5 | I think the subtle jokes really hurt this one. With an obscure topic like this, your going to have to make the jokes very obvious. |
| Reviewer: | --—John Lydon 15:19, June 9, 2010 (UTC) | |