The U.S. Department of Defense has come under fire this week after launching S’nooze, a news parody web site featuring a lighthearted look at the day’s events through the prism of the Pentagon’s unique brand of humor. Liberal watchdogs have criticized the site as a potentially dangerous outlet for government propaganda, while everyone else has been complaining that it’s not nearly as funny as The Onion.
“S’nooze is some funny shit,” explained uncharacteristically laid-back DoD worker Pvt.Thom Vogelsang, who was soon afterward court-marshaled for unruly facial hair. “I don’t care what anybody says. That piece we did on giving pacifists rat-poison enchiladas was da bomb.”
“Nobody reads our site,” complained S’nooze head writer Lt. Col. Danish Marks. “Our site stats suck. The Onion’s got more ads on it than a NASCAR stock car and they’ve still got hits like Usher. I’d love to be within smelling distance of that kind of traffic. But just because we’re the Pentagon, everybody thinks we can’t have a hilariously irreverent take on the news.”
Concerned citizens with too much time on their hands have pointed out the potential propagandic dangers of the site, referring to the fact that S’nooze is run by U.S. military troops trained in “information warfare.” Other, less politically-paranoid citizens have alternately pointed out the failed-humor dangers of the site, being that it is run by U.S. military troops trained in “information warfare.”
Complaints to Pentagon Inspector General Joseph Schmitz recently initiated a thorough review of the site’s contents, which Schmitz summarized as “amusingish.”
“Jesus. Did you see their first issue?” blasphemed freelance media critic Rutherford B. Goods. “They had a feature where you could add ‘funny’ captions to the Abu Ghraib photos, and an essay contest about how pacifism is for fags. I didn’t laugh so hard my sides didn’t hurt.”
Yet another wave of criticism has come at the Pentagon from humorless Americans who were tricked by the site’s lack of successful humor into regarding S’nooze as a legitimate news source. The site’s recent headline of “Iraqis Demand Recount—Not Enough Civilians Killed” sparked a flood of angry emails from readers who had missed the Pentagon’s tiny-type disclaimer of “Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense: You been punk’d, bitch!” at the bottom of the page, therefore missing the “joke.” No one is quite sure what to make of the fact that most of the angry readers were in favor of a tragic recount.
“Sure, everybody can make fun of the government all the live-long day, but now that we want to get in on the fun, it’s a crime against humanity,” complained project head Maj. Dean Veiner. “Entertainment Weekly actually said that, ‘a crime against humanity.’ I liked them better when they didn’t do web site reviews.”
commune media critics Roland McShyster and Orson Welch were both asked to review the site for this article, but the results were unfortunately deemed unsuitable for publication. For one, McShyster seems to have reviewed the similarly-named www.s’mores.com web site instead, and Welch’s review was so bitter that commune lawyers feared it would violate the state’s Hate Crimes Act of 2000.