Dear Satire Literalists,

Regular readers of The Hullabaloo will know we run this “Airing of Grievances” column weekly. It is designed to offer a humorous, witty and sometimes satirical take on a [sometimes questionably] relevant issue of the day. And some of you, being the cultured consumers of news you are, appreciate what we’re trying to do here. But others have, for whatever reason, kept up a militant insistence on misconstruing this lighthearted satire column for something else, and it is these among you to whom I address this.

While many other news outlets across the media landscape increasingly opt to coddle their audiences, ever dumbing down their content to appeal to the lowest common denominator, we here at The Hullabaloo have always had a higher opinion of our readers’ abilities. But to be honest, some of you just make that really hard sometimes.

Look, I get it. Sometimes it’s just easier to leave outraged comments on articles than it is to actually bother with understanding what the author is trying to say. You might even say this activity is rapidly becoming America’s favorite pastime. But if I see another person self-righteously bemoaning the waning journalistic standards of The Hullabaloo because they thought the latest “Airing” column was “uninformative” or that the author should “go find a personality” or even that the author misattributed nefarious motives to one Severus Snape (just read the comment from last week’s “Airing”), I might just lose my mind.

Let’s get a couple things straight. “Airing” is obviously not meant to be a hard news story, so if you’re frustrated that your own poor decision to rely on a satire article for your news left you uninformed, well, sorry. “Airing” is also not, contrary to the beliefs of some, the official opinion of the Hullabaloo board. It is nothing more and nothing less than a platform for the lone college student with a bone to pick and nowhere better to do it than in the pages of a student-run newspaper more than willing to enable them.

I’m aware that I may be starting to sound just as pedantic and self-righteous as the people I’m criticizing, but as you might imagine, satire has a tendency to lose its flavor when you’re constantly having to explain it to people too dense to recognize it when they see it.

Just as readers should hold The Hullabaloo to the highest standard, we expect a little more from all of you if this whole “Eyes and Ears of the Tulane Community” thing is going to work out.

Sincerely,

A Hullabalooer who ventured into the comments section