That's Supposed To Be Funny?

People often ask me, "Taylor, what made you want to become a writer?" And I tell them, "Nothing, stupid. Writing is dumb. I just like to blog." And that's usually when they tell me I didn't get the writing job for which I was interviewing. And then they ask me to leave.

Okay, that's obviously not true. I'd never say writing is dumb. And I'd certainly never interview for a writing job. But it is true that I like to blog. It's a creative outlet for me to spit out some humor without having the unwanted stigma of being a goofball for doing it so much in real life. (Plus, I can write run-on sentences like that last one without being graded on it.) And I've always enjoyed good humor writing.

I remember being introduced to the world of humor writing back in the fifth grade… bathrooms. Kids would write jokes and limericks on the wall for all to enjoy. And I learned a lot about what was funny and what wasn't funny. None of that is useable now due to the graphic nature of most elementary boys' wall musings. But what I really like is some good satire. For those of you unfamiliar with satire, it's basically The Daily Show and The Onion. They mock media by imitating the style and changing the content.

The first time someone told me about The Onion, I typed in the website and started reading. And I thought I was a complete moron because I didn't get any of the humor. It just seemed like a regular news site to me. And it wasn't until the 6th or 7th article that I realized I'd typed in theunion.com instead of theonion.com. The Union is a local paper in California that does not publish satire. And I'm willing to bet they get a lot of their web traffic from idiots like me who can't type "onion" very well.