Unemployment is viewed in one of two ways depending on who you ask: A miserable prison of atrophy and worthlessness or a time in which we can reflect, languish, and do all the things that working never allowed us time for. More often not, the unemployed will shift between these two opinions based on what day it is and how long he or she has been unemployed. As someone who has quickly learned the ins and outs of amusing oneself during the eight hours a day when everyone else is getting paid to be unhappy, here are some helpful tips for prevailing over the emotional rollercoaster of unemployment.

1. Do not seize the day: Waking up too early is the worst thing you can do. Rising anytime before ten or eleven will make you all too aware of how little you have to do.

2. Gauge blocks of time by movies or TV: For movies: If you have watched two movies, it is time for lunch. For TV: If you have watched six episodes of a comedy (like Strangers With Candy) or four episodes of a drama (like Roswell), that’s when you know it’s time for lunch.

3. Don’t forget to move: As addictive as catching up on pop culture can be, leaving the house from time to time is important to not feeling like you live in a vacuum.

4. Walk places that take forever to walk to: If you don’t live in New York, this task is particularly easy to execute.

5. Clean your apartment thoroughly on a daily basis: This is, believe it or not, therapeutic and it will make your roommates more appreciative rather than judgmental of your status as “the unemployed fuck-up.”

6. Tap into your artistic side: Drawing and painting is a very good hobby to have when you don’t have a job because it is an extremely time-consuming effort.

7. Take a two hour nap at some point in the day: Generally, four o’ clock is the best time. But don’t get too hooked to nap time, otherwise, you’ll have to move to Europe where they have siestas if you ever want to get a job again.

8. Apply for one job a day: Applying to any more than that will make you feel like an inadequate piece of shit for how few responses you get. At least, with this method, you can use the excuse that it’s because you have not applied for that many positions.

This website will haunt you in your dreams after how much time you spend on it.

9. Start drinking after your nap: The earlier the better. This also helps ensure you will have a hangover that will cause you to sleep well into midday.

Like Willy Wonka said, "Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker."

10. When people ask you what you do for a living, respond in one of the following ways: 1) Mumble for an uncomfortable number of seconds so that they’ll move on from the subject. 2) “I work for the government. That’s all I can say.” 3) “I’m freelancing.” 4) “I quit my job after I received a small, but respectable inheritance from my transgender uncle” (the transgender detail will throw them off enough to not ask you to pick up the bar tab).

These suggestions are only a glimpse at some of the channels through which you can maintain your sanity. Everyone has a unique approach to getting through unemployment, a state of being that spotlights how life is essentially killing time until another phase we can be disappointed by.

We’ve all had those dreaded moments. The moments when your singledom is put on display because you’re the only person who can sit at the head of the table in restaurants, because there are never three seats together at a movie theater when you go with a couple, and because formal invitations always encourage a plus one.

In spite of an evermore accepting society, it seems that it is more of a stigma to be alone and heterosexual than it is to be gay. At least when you’re gay, you’ve declared some sort of sexual stance. Single straight people are assumed to be either mentally challenged or latent serial killers (and yes, the generalizations admittedly have some merit). But it doesn’t have to be a torturous experience. Believe it or not, some people are not married or attached by choice.

If you are not in this category of being consensually “eligible,” here are some ways you might become more comfortable/accustomed to the notion of attending a gathering of your married/engaged/in a serious relationship friends.

1. Act like you’re oblivious to all awkwardness. This generally includes two of the worst questions a single person can be asked: “Are you seeing anyone special?” and “How’s your love life?” I like to respond to the latter question by bursting into my own rendition of Haddaway’s classic dance hit “What Is Love?” People typically back off the subject after that.

2. Drink. Alcohol. Copiously. Not so much that it’s obvious you’re drunk, but just enough to be perceived as “jovial” or “affable.”

3. If necessary, create outlandish stories about your sexual hijinks to make monogamy seem as incongruous as it really is.

4. Suggest group activities that do not require “pairs.” This would include bowling, croquet, band practice, and going to a racetrack.

5. When couples start prattling about plans for their impending nuptials, interrupt them with your plans for signing up for the Peace Corps and volunteering for the American Red Cross—thereby rendering their lives far more self-indulgent and purposeless.

6. Prepare elaborate appetizers and desserts for the various functions that you attend, so that the attention is always on your culinary skills rather than your skills at cultivating romance. If you can’t cook, buy something and pass it off as your own.

7. When friends ask you if your parents are ever disappointed that you haven’t given them any grandchildren, respond meekly by saying that you’re barren and at the bottom of an adoption waitlist.

8. Never allow anyone in your life to convince you to go on a speed dating jaunt or talk you into being set up with one of his or her other single friends—who you’ve probably never met before because he is bald and short.

9. Attend Alcoholics or Narcotics Anonymous meetings. They are full of single people who hate people with the ability to “commit” as much as you do.

10. Sleep with your best friend’s husband. Just so you can have the satisfaction of wiping that smug look off her face whenever you feel inclined.

So, there you have it. Ten ways to curb the uncomfortableness of being single when none of your other friends are. You can also turn to another song called “(What Is) Love?” by Jennifer Lopez. I find lyrics like “What if I never find/And I’m left behind?/Should I keep hoping for love?/What if I’m still the same?/Status doesn’t change” to be oh so consoling.

Patriotism Starts at the Top and Ends at the Bottom

Independence Day: the day we independed something…uhh…a long time ago, where…fuck it, let’s party.

With July 4th right around the corner, I decided to teach America what it means to me, to be free. You need four basic ingredients – none of which hold more or less weight – to a perfect Independence Day, so don’t skimp!

How would like your sausage?

Barbecue

Nothing screams “America!” like a good-old fashioned barbecue. Naturally, if I knew how to cook I’d give you some tips about setting up your BBQ – maybe a recipe or two – but that’s simply not the case. Instead, I will give you my experience as a rider of barbecue coattails.

For starters, you always want to double check what you want to bring is not an item that someone else is already bringing; if they are doubling you up, who knows who brought what? And further more, you have no complete control over a particular good. Yes, if they tell you to bring beer, and add “if you want” at the end, chances are there ain’t much trust. Good work! Now you can go buy that extra fanny pack (People still buy fanny packs? Probably). If you’re looking to score some points, ask if they need any spare utensils or temporary tattoos. Let me tell you, when you show up with temporary tattoos (preferably ultra feminine ones), you are a god amongst men.

You’re wondering, but why do I care about gaining favor with my hosts? Well, friend, that question leads directly into our next ingredient.

Sometimes you Wish you had More Hands

Boobs

“Fuck, man, I love tits!” Me too, dude…me…too. Which is exactly why your influence in the BBQ as a whole (ingredient one!) is so vital! You see, you get in good with the host, and now your library of potential sweater mittens expands. The hosts generally know everyone, or at least one person in each “party” of people; so you do well with ingredient one, and the chesticles fly at you like they’ve got a fever, and you’re the cowbell.

Boobs come in all kinds of realities, makes and models. There’s nothing quite as American as a set of amazing breasts; especially ones that have been coerced into letting you play with them. Now how much more awesome has the barbecue become, since you’ve found a pair of flapjacks to call your own? Don’t know? A-FUCK-ING-LOT! So you’re sittin’ there, enjoying your delicious barbecue, applying some temporary tattoos (if you’re smart), marveling/drooling over your recently-acquired pair of bazooms, but something feels amiss.

Hmm…what seems off here? Has it hit you, while you’re devouring that strip of carne asada? Are you..? a little thirst all-of-a-sudden…? Enter stage left, ingredient number three…

Penis Beer Bong: Stroke of Genius

Beer

Just saying the word, I can faintly hear the Star-Spangled Banner in the distance. Beer. The best four letter word in our American English (The best kind of English there is! Take that, English!). Remember that feeling of emptiness a few moments ago? How ya feelin’ now, champ, as you wash down that tasty BBQ with an ice-cold beer? Fantastic, I know.

Well, what kind of beer should you get? Generally speaking, I go with the lowest common denominator, or ask the host before you get there. There are lots of Summer Ales available now, and you can’t really go wrong with a lighter beer (Corona, a good hefeweizen, Bud / Coors, Stella, etc). If you brought meat during ingredient number one, then perhaps a beer that goes along well with that type of meat would do well. This guy had some cool tips on mixing BBQ with beer, and since he posted a recipe, I’ll just assume he knows more than me.

Shit, if this ain’t heaven, I don’t know what is. Got my BBQ, got my boobs, and now I’ve got my beer. Does it get any better? Ha…ha…ha. To even ask that question before I mention ingredient number four could be seen as unpatriotic.

Instawood

Fireworks

*Fist pump*. If there’s anything I like more than BBQ, boobs or beer, it’s gotta be fireworks (blow jobs are on their own list, sorry). There’s just something about a shit ton of crazy lights making noise that gets your nipples hard, and your dick throbbing. The beauty of fireworks is how universal they are: fun for kids, adults, dogs, getting headers in the back seat of your 2000 Buick Regal GS, selling drugs to minors, etc etc.

To whoever invented fireworks – I’m sure I could find you in a third of a second, but certainly fuck that – I salute you. You have brought me lots of pleasure in my life, and I can’t wait for more.

Here’s to BBQ, boobs, beer and fireworks!! Amen amen.

Disclaimer: This guide to curing depression has no medical facts, accuracy, or real value. Please do not try this at home.

Disclaimers are mostly unnecessary in my line of work. If you believe anything I’ve ever written, you probably shouldn’t be reading. This is an exception though, since I’m writing from the heart. You all know what depression is. Everyone has been visited by this at some point in their lives. Here’s how to solve it.

Step 1: Isolation

The first step to dealing with depression is isolation. Some people think that friends are good for helping you through depression. This is true, but a person is unlikely to remain your friend if you’re a whiny bitch for an extended period of time. Depressed people are whiny bitches.  If they’re not whiny, they’re still not fun to be around. In either case, the solution is isolation. If you’re depressed, stay away from anyone you care about, and they’ll still be your friends when you’re no longer depressed. It’s a genius solution.

Step 2: Distraction

The second step is distraction. I’m not talking about ordinary types of distraction. I’m talking about super distraction. You need to find an activity that consumes hours on end AND that you’re really good at. Unnaturally good at. By doing something that you are really good for an extended period of time, you will repair your self confidence. Make sure that you can’t fail at this activity. If you’re an ice skater and you trip, you’ll just get more depressed. A good suggestion is masturbation. You probably can’t fail at masturbation, and you can do it until you’re no longer depressed.

Step 3: Find your Happy Place

Once you’ve sufficiently distracted yourself, you can find your happy place. Your happy place is where you can leave all the stresses of life behind and reconnect with the awesomeness that is you. Remembering how awesome you are will instantly cure your depression. My happy place is two girls making out in a grassy field. Yours is probably the same. While envisioning your happy place, let the calm flow over you, and remember that life is as beautiful two girls making out. With this thought in place, you’ll be able to smile again. Depression cured.

Sunshine, Rainbows, and Unicorns are the opposite of depression.

In the Christian tradition, there exists a time each year when you have to give up your favorite thing for 40 days. This time is called Lent, and it’s basically the opposite of Christmas. The purpose of giving up what you like most is to increase your spirituality. While I’m not entirely sure how not texting people gets you one step closer to Heaven, the theory intrigues me. Thus, I present to you, my list of things you can give up for Lent.

Toilet Paper

Ever wipe your ass with sticks and leaves?

It’s the little things in life that are actually our favorite things, though we don’t always recognize it. Small things make a world of difference, and toilet paper is one of those things that I just would not want to live without. I might spend all day in front of my computer, but if someone asked to choose between the internet and toilet paper…well, I can’t wipe my ass with my keyboard.  (Or at least, I wouldn’t want to.)

Sense of Security

You might not realize it, but your sense of security is exceedingly important to living a mentally stable life. This, of course, makes it a perfect candidate for something to give up.  To accomplish this, simply don’t lock your doors. Not knowing whether your car will be stolen or your house will be robbed will teach you to appreciate that sense of security. If that’s not enough, you can spend time in alleys or hang out with people of questionable origin.

Your Organs

Giving up your organs for Lent actually accomplishes multiple things. Not only are you giving up something extremely important to you, but you’re also helping someone else. This is a double win spiritually, and might be an auto-Heaven. (An auto-Heaven is when you’ve done something so good, you automatically go to Heaven. The opposite would be an auto-Hell.) That being said, you should probably not give up any vital organs.

Contraceptives

The best invention of all time.

When I write guides, I always try to list things in order of significance. The choice between organs and contraceptives was a difficult one, but really, I’d rather lose a kidney than gain a baby. There are two options for this. You can either stop using things that prevent pregnancy (birth control pills, etc), or you can stop using condoms. Obviously, not using condoms is much, much worse since you risk the chance of STDs.

Jesus

Finally, for the truly hardcore, you can give up Jesus. If you are a Christian, there should be nothing you love more in life than Jesus, and so to give him up is truly the greatest sacrifice. You might think this is counter-productive to trying to increase your spirituality, but you’d be wrong. After all, can you really understand the grace of the Lord until you’ve stopped basking in his glory? I think not.

It’s a brand new year, and that means it’s time to make New Year Resolutions that will last. While you could try to lose weight or be a better person, I’d advise a slightly more achievable approach. What is that approach you ask? It’s committing the Seven Deadly Sins, all year long. Now, you might be afraid of going to Hell if you follow this plan, but I’m here to tell you why it’s okay to commit the sins. In some cases, it’s even beneficial.

Pride and Lust

Seven Deadly Sins

Anyone who wants to defend the Seven Deadly Sins needs to start where everyone will agree: pride. All Americans will agree that when you do something well, you should be proud of yourself. It boosts self-esteem. It gives you a sense of accomplishment. It makes life worth living. Really, there is nothing wrong with being prideful at all. It is one of the best things you can do, and more importantly, when you’ve done very well for yourself you start attracting people. It’s unfair to lead people on, so when you attract them, it is important to have sex with them…which leads us to lust. Remember, if you don’t have sex with people, they’ll lose self-esteem and pride, and we don’t want that. Sex is an act of giving, and you should give to as many people as you possibly can. (But always wear a condom.)

Envy and Greed

Ben knows the score.

Moving on, we have envy. Envy is our little green friend that results from not having enough little green friends. Envy gives us something to strive for in life. Where would we be if we didn’t know who we wanted to emulate, or who’s stuff we wanted to have. If we didn’t know that there were people with Aston Martin’s, would we really want to work? Envy keeps us working towards the betterment of ourselves and mankind.

But, it can’t end there. We also need to be greedy. After all, there is no such thing as a good life, just new standards. Once we have our sports cars and high definition televisions, we can start thinking about the things that really matter – better sports cars and bigger high definition televisions. Our very economy would collapse if we were ever content with what we had, and so greed plays a very important role in our lives.

Gluttony and Sloth

Gluttony is the backbone of America. We must consume, for the good of people everywhere. It’s the basis of our economy and why we’re all overweight. Most importantly, gluttony is delicious. Gluttony is about consuming, and it doesn’t have to be food. You can be a glutton with anything. Having a lot of sex or watching a lot of TV are good ways to start. However you decide to do it, at some point it’ll bring you to sloth.

Sloth is what we really lack in our country, and it’s my favorite sin. People never take enough time to relax and reflect on the world around them. Sloth alleviates the want to work, the will to do, and puts us in a place where we can properly gaze upon the stars and just be. It is very easy to be slothful, once you’ve learned the trick. Just do anything in excess (gluttony), and you’ll be too exhausted to do anything but relax.

Wrath

As you can see, sinning isn’t clear cut. Anything that seems bad can be astoundingly good for you. But, we haven’t discussed wrath, and this might be the toughest sell. After all, not many people will want to accept the role of rage in their life. However, the benefits of wrath are many. First, wrath will give you the backbone you’ve always wanted. Not only that, but it’ll make people fear you, and everyone knows it is better to be feared than loved. Finally, we can revive righteous anger. If you don’t know what righteous anger is, it’s when you murder someone who types “u” instead of “you” or when you slowly dismember someone for typing “lol gud to c u 2, u owt this week?”

Remember that anyone can make a New Year’s Resolution, but not everyone will choose the right path. The Seven Deadly Sins will help us with our self-esteem, through pride and lust. Envy and greed will help us achieve our goals. Gluttony and sloth will reward us when we have done well. Wrath will keep us passionate. Is there really anything else a person needs to live a fulfilling life?

Music pollution is an omnipresent and inescapable poison in the world. It is a devious and treacherous thing that people don’t often think about even as it is affecting them. Consider the negative emotions that spawn from hearing the first song you ever experienced with your former significant other, or the anger you feel when someone is blasting a genre of music that you hate. Music is everywhere…and deadly.

What is Music Pollution?

Music = Noise!

Music pollution comes in many different forms.  It can be loud music that stops you from hearing the person next to you. It can be Christmas music assaulting you while you shop. It can be a song that distracts you from homework, studying, or anything else you need to do. In all cases, music pollution is a sonic invasion that you would have rather avoided.  Any time you want silence and there is sound, you have music pollution.

Effects of Music Pollution

Music pollution has many negative effects. The most important of these is the disruption of communication. Places such as bars will usually have music, and many of them have it at high volumes. While this may be intended in order to make men and women rub up against each other in order to talk, it can be very unwanted. If you have a group of people in a room, the last thing you want to do is shout all night long in order to communicate.

A secondary effect of music pollution is that it can change emotions. If you’ve ever worked in retail during the holidays, you know the complete torture that comes from listening to the same 20 songs for 8 hours a day. It gets significantly worse during Christmas. This repetition can lead to anger and hostility, and left unchecked, it can turn the best of workers into a mass murderer.

Seriously. Musical Toaster.

Finally, music pollution can distract from the important things. With sound coming from every device a person owns, from the computer to the toaster, it can be difficult to focus on tasks that need to be completed. This is common among people going to school, who listen to music while doing homework. It is also common for someone to be listening to music while taking a phone call. This can result in miscommunication, and you might end up agreeing to go shopping with a girl when you thought she said something else entirely.  Definitely a problem.

How to Stop it?

While reducing the total amount of music pollution in your life can be difficult, there are ways that may help. If you’re in a bar and want to have a conversation with someone you met, invite her back to your place. Tell her that you’d love to continue discussing the importance of Hobbesian theory on the condition of the government, but you would prefer to do so in a quiet place. She will almost certainly agree. To get around retail store music, simply wear earphones. The bigger, the better. People may make fun of you for wearing them, but you won’t be able to hear them anyway. And of course, in your home, you can just turn the music off. Really. Silence is golden.

Are you feeling stressed, depressed, and lonely, but afraid to try the pills that

Hedonism bot knows what's up.

are advertised to you on television? Are you feeling sad about something that you could change if only you were a little less moral? Are you tired of being less than you could be? Do you want to stop caring about people who offer you nothing in exchange for your friendship? If so, you may want to try hedonism.

What is Hedonism?

Hedonism is a theory of ethics that believes that pleasure is the most important thing. That means that you should do things that make you happy. It’s really quite easy to follow. If it makes you happy, do it. If it doesn’t, don’t do it.  Always seek happiness and pleasure. Always minimize pain. That doesn’t sound bad, does it?

Why Hedonism?

Jefferson is watching you.

The best answer to why you should be a hedonist is why not? There’s nothing to lose from always trying to make yourself happy. After all, isn’t that what our forefathers fought for? If you read the Declaration of Independence, you’ll see that America was founded on the idea of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. All hedonism wants is for you to pursue happiness. And don’t you want to make Thomas Jefferson happy? You do. Trust me. Hedonism is basically the counter-emo.

But…?

But, you’ve heard that hedonism is a selfish practice that ignores the feelings of other people in order to focus on yourself? Well, that’s not necessarily true, unless you get some sort of pleasure in harming others and making people upset. If you do, you’re what they refer to as a sadist, and you might want to seek psychological help. The truth of the matter is, most people get happy when other people get happy. Hedonism, while focusing on the self, doesn’t stop you from helping out other people or caring for them. You just need to always place yourself as your number one. That’s not a bad thing. You can even choose to reduce your overall happiness to increase someone else’s happiness for a time. ..if it’ll make you happier in the long run. And it might.

How?

Hedonism is an easy theory, but difficult to master. Let’s say you want to get drunk, but it’s your significant other’s birthday, and you might ruin the fun. You have to weigh the pleasure of getting drunk against the lack of sex and relationship drama that will be a result from it. By determining values for these things, you can then decide whether or not to take the action. Getting drunk will be +3 pleasure points. Lack of sex is -3 pleasure points. Relationship drama is another -3 pleasure points. The net result is -3, so you probably shouldn’t get drunk. This is known as Hedonic calculus. There are also things to consider, such as how long the pleasure and pain will last. Relationship drama will last a lot longer than drunken pleasure. You need to keep that in mind.

So, if you’re unhappy, you should realize that there’s nothing stopping you from being happy. You have the whole world in your hands. You just need to think about yourself, and what you can do to make your life better…and then do it. Are you in a bad relationship? End it and work on yourself. Do you have a crappy job? Go to school, get some skills, and get a better one. These things will increase your happiness and make Thomas Jefferson proud.

When I’m not spouting nonsense (never), I work in customer service. A lot of that is responding to emails. While this is not the most prestigious job, I have been able to learn a few things from this.

1. Since everyone is asking the same question, it makes sense to make a template response to the questions you get all the time.
2. People don’t like when you give them template responses, because they’re not personal.
3. To personalize responses you need to add a greeting, an empathy line, and specify the situation.

Templates increase efficiency by letting you just fill in blanks.

My base response to the second thing is, “Who cares?” If you get an answer that fits your situations, you should take it and like it. But then I started thinking about how that might relate to real life, and these same concepts hold true. I’ll explain using love for an example.

Personalizing Love

Most people can relate to love. Now, the template for love is “I love you.” This can be (and is) used in thousands of situations every day. Its personalization comes from the fact that it implies intimacy. You don’t love random people off the street…usually. But when it comes down to it, “I love you” is really not all that personal. Let’s see what happens when we use customer service tricks to personalize.

Step 1: Greeting

Daddy has no name

The greeting is pretty important to the overall message that you’re trying to send. You want the person to know that you read far enough into their email to find their name. “Hello” is different from “Hello John.” The same is true with love. If you don’t think names matter, try saying “I love you” to your significant other using the wrong name. Hilarity ensues. So, let’s add a name in and see what it does to the personalization. As I don’t have a significant other, we’re going to use my computer’s name as an example. “I love you, computer.” See? More personal already. It’s even better if you use pet names.

Step 2: Empathy Lines

And it feels good

An empathy line is a sentence that summarizes the reason for the email and makes you feel like the customer service agent cares. They usually start with “We understand” or “We appreciate” or “We apologize for the inconvenience.”  They end up sounding like, “We apologize for the inconvenience. The issue of us killing your mother has been escalated, and you’ll receive a response within 2 business days.” Hate. Empathy. Lines.  Anyway, back on point. You can add one of these to “I love you” to make it more personal. Summarize why you love them. “Compy [pet name], I appreciate and thank you for the companionship you have provided me over the last few years. I love you.” Much more personal.

Step 3: Specify the situation

The empathy line is good, but if you use it more than once, it’ll start sounding like a template. This is what we’re trying to avoid. To fix this, we specify the situation. In customer service you  might help someone with pricing. Your empathy line would reflect pricing, but in the body of the text you would give the product name. The same thing goes with love. Sure, you always appreciate their companionship, but why are you specifically telling them this now. “Compy, I appreciate and thank you for the companionship you have provided me over the last few years. I love you because your video card shows the most amazing detail when I’m looking at naked women on the internet. No one let’s me view porn like you do.”

Sure. It’s longer. That’s a lot of words (48 instead of 3) to use to express one feeling. But it’s that added description, those extra words, that make the difference between someone knowing that you love them versus not knowing if you’re just saying it out of habit. And knowing for sure will improve your customer satisfaction scores.

Other examples:

Grief:  “A bad thing happened to me today.”

You can say, “I’m sorry.” Or you can say,

I apologize that unfortunate events occur [empathy], Compy [greeting]. It makes me sad when bad things happen to you [specify].

Positive events: “I just got a new car.”

You can say, “Cool.” Or you can say,

I understand that getting a new car is awesome, Compy. It is very cool that you now have one.

Sex: Someone has just had sex with you.

You can say, “That was nice.” Or you can say,

I appreciate your participation in my getting laid, Compy. Please be advised that I would like to repeat this process in the future. If you have any further sexual concerns, please contact me back at (phone number).

Maybe forget that last one…

Webcomic artists use Guest Weeks as copouts.

I have writer’s block, which isn’t really surprising. I almost always have writer’s block. The difference this time is that I am also very, very tired. Which means, instead of fighting through the writer’s block and giving you a real article, I’m going to write Psych’s Brilliant Guide to Writing the Best Social Commentary Ever in the Universe. I believe this is referred to as a “cop out”.

Choosing a topic

The first step to writing good social commentary is choosing a topic. Most people would read the newspaper or watch television to come up with this topic. It should be something relevant to current events. There’s a lot to choose from. Celebrities are dying by the dozen, healthcare is trying to undergo reform, and the economy sucks. All of these are good topics. However, they bore me. Marshmallows, on the other hand, do not. The topic is marshmallows.

Doing the research

The next step is research. If you want a good article, you need to know what you’re talking about. But before we get into that, keep in mind that good social commentary is funny. So while doing your research, be sure to pull out facts that are not only interesting, but amusing. If you can’t find any that fit this, make the facts up. Also, you get extra points whenever you tie your facts back to sex.

Example 1: Marshmallows are fluffy.

That’s true and possibly interesting, but not funny and exciting. Let’s take that statement and make it better.

It is a well known fact that a woman’s breasts are made of marshmallows.

Close...

By stating that it is a well known fact, people will not want to deny it because then they would be ignorant for not knowing that it is a well known fact.  On top of that, you’ve linked marshmallows to breasts, which is exciting. Since it is completely untrue, it is also funny. Remember, the internet does not care for accuracy when it could have sex and humor instead.

Pictures

People hate reading, so be sure to include pictures. The pictures should be of the most ridiculous statement you’ve made in the paragraph. I like to include at least three pictures, so that they tell a story. The goal is that no one has to read the article to know what you’re talking about. Also, if you can’t find an appropriate picture, use MS Paint and draw something. It doesn’t matter if you have no art skills at all. In fact, not having art skills can add to the humor.

Putting it together

Once you’ve collected an assortment of facts, you can write your article. Make sure your introduction tells what you are commenting on and that your conclusion sums up the entire article. The body should have your facts strung together haphazardly.  You should comment on relevant facts. Add pictures for flavor, and then you’re done.

Sample article on Marshmallows:

Introduction: Marshmallows are cool.

Pictures are really important.

Body: It is a well known fact that women’s breasts are made of marshmallows. Once, they attacked the Ghostbusters. Also, they are spelled marshmallows and not marshmellows. They would be better if they were spelled marshmellows, but I guess they’re still cool.

Conclusion: Marshmallows, yum.

See? The social part is that everyone knows what a marshmallow is. The commentary part is that I really think they should be spelled marshmellows…

I told you it was a cop out.