My Experience Posting Satire to the Internet
The lesson: I should have known better
My last post, Pave the 14ers, was a joke.
If you know me at all, you probably realized that. The whole “Pave the 14ers” thing has been a running gag amongst my group of friends since a sleep-deprived, manic day up the Loft Route on Longs Peak last year (if you didn’t know, that’s a non-standard route).
But even outside of my friends in Colorado, I’m known as an avid environmentalist: I majored in environmental sustainability in college; I’m a climber, skier, and biker; I work in the solar industry seeking impact in a career.
Frankly, I’m terrible to talk to at a party because I tend to start ranting about energy policy or permitting systems or the Tragedy of the Commons.
Obviously, I would never seriously endorse paving roads up all of the mountains that I think are already being loved to death. I also think there is value in difficult achievements; if I had taken escalators to the tops of all the mountains I have climbed, the summits wouldn’t mean much of anything to me.
Sure, my blog readers, especially the surprising number of randos that have subscribed to it that I don’t know, don’t necessarily know this background about me. But this blog often focuses on environmental topics; until recently, the top post of all time on it was a treatise on conservation that argues in favor of stricter permitting on public lands. I’ve written extensively on climate change and environmentalism, such as with posts about communicating climate change, coal, and environmental purity, among other topics.
And the content was clearly ridiculous…
Just like the proposed construction, the road to achieve this dream will not be an easy one. Advocates will be forced to reckon with strong entrenched interests: Sierra Clubbers, Boulder Hardos, hiking clubs from around the country, and all their ilk will likely come out in staunch opposition to this plan, for reasons of morality, practicality, and, perhaps more than anything else, vanity. But the vision I advocate for here—one of access for the Everyman, expansion of the frontier, and increased marginal utility—will not be easily defeated by legions of Patagonia-wearing, John Muir-quoting sheep.
For God’s sake, I’m a Boulder Hardo!!!
Still, I added a tag in small text at the bottom of the post: “(/s just in case)”. I imagined that the content was absurd enough that it was really quite unnecessary, but figured I would add the subtle disclaimer just in case.
Sometimes, if I’m looking for a little extra feedback on a post I’ll post I’ll drop a link in a relevant subreddit or two on Reddit. Generally, I can expect a handful of comments and a few hundred views. What happened when I posted Pave the 14ers on a few Colorado subreddits surprised me.
Dozens of comments of this style. Dozens of people taking the article 100% seriously and feeling strongly enough to comment about it. I was stunned—not by the vitriol, of course, because this is the Internet, but by the fact that people were taking it seriously.
Aside from a couple of astute observers, there was a complete inability to perceive the obvious joke here, even with the tag.
Frankly, I should have known better. I Poe’s Law’d myself: online, if an author fails to make their intent explicitly clear, it is impossible to distinguish extreme takes as parody or sincerity.
I wrote what was, in my mind, obviously satire but the position was apparently not ridiculous enough to insulate myself from being mistaken for the real thing. I should have known better.
I can’t lie and say that I don’t derive some pleasure from reading these responses from the people that I accidentally trolled, but I did learn that there’s no such thing as being too careful. I’ve edited the post. Now, when you open the page the first thing you see says:
Note: This isn’t serious.