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@realDonaldTrump’s Guide to Crafting the Perfect Tweet

QUARTERLY |

Twitter is the perfect weapon. You can tweet at anyone, and if your takedown is zany enough, people will retweet it and make your enemy feel even more stupid! You should always try to tweet at everybody who has ever wronged you. You can threaten your teachers, friends, high school bullies. No one is safe.

1. Start with punchy nicknames that pack a punch
Whimsical nicknames spread like wildfire. The internet loves labels like ‘Lying Ted’, ‘Goofy Elizabeth Warren’ and ‘Crooked Hillary’. The leftist media will give the names so much airtime just because they can’t believe how immature you are. They do your job for you! Next time you address your foe, try something like ‘Crazy boy Baldwin’, ‘Wackidywack Cooper’ or ‘Cuckboy Sanders’.

2. Discredit your attacker
Once you weaken your nemesis with an embarrassing nick-name, you can really discredit their criticism by pointing out their failures, even if they are unrelated. If someone calls you out for being sexist, simply remind your twitter followers they once lost an election in primary school. If someone says you are an idiot, remind them how hot your wife is. You can also discredit your opponents by pointing out the only reason they insulted you is because they are jealous and have always been out to get you.

3. Blur the ‘truth’
If you don’t like what they have said about you, tweet at them saying it’s fake news. It doesn’t matter what’s true or not. No one cares when you’re a winner.

4. Send it off with a snappy ending
You can do so much damage in 140 characters. The best way to end off a tweet is with a simple value judgement like ‘Sad!’, ‘Bad!’ Or ‘Shame!’ It is impossible to come back with anything when you end on such a strong point. The lower you blow, the more you force your foe to go low with you. So go low, create a tweet that is the equivalent to a punch in the balls.

This article originally appeared in The Chaser’s America (CQ6): buy it here.

Pet snake decides to let owner live another day

NEWS |

A local pet python named Carlos has decided to let his owner Trent Smith live another day.

“You know things seem to be looking up for him, he’s got a really good thing going with Juliet, I’ll probably put off strangling him in his sleep for at least a couple of days.”

Carlos said his deep-seated need to kill Smith comes from him being a snake. “It’s my natural urge to strangle Trent then slowly digest him. If he thinks his reptile licence is going to help him, he’s absolutely dreaming. He also named me Carlos, he knows I’m not Spanish, he thinks its very funny. It’s not.”

Unbeknown to Carlos, Smith is aware of Carlos’ natural urges towards him, and each night heads to bed assuming he will be strangled to death. “Everytime I wake up with a pulse I immediately give Carlos a rat from the fridge. His little treat for not ending my life.”

(You’ll never) Let it go: Parents brace for Frozen sequel

NEWS |

Parents across the western world are bracing themselves for the release of the sequel to the incredibly popular and horribly annoying children’s movie, Frozen.

“Without a doubt Frozen was the most insidious Disney children’s movie ever released,” said Drummoyne mother of three, Stacey Dangerfield.

“I’m sure there was a heartwarming story and moral lesson in there somewhere about being an individual and respecting peoples’ differences, yada yada yada… but fuck me, it took my little shits five years to stop singing that ‘Let it Go’ song. Elsa’s got a lot to answer for.”

“At least movies like Aladdin and the Lion King had of bunch of different ditties you could sing along too. Frozen was just the same thing on repeat, for years on end. I shudder to think what round two will be like.”

The Chaser’s Guide to Modern Journalism

QUARTERLY |

It’s a hard-knock life being a journalist these days. But with grit, determination and a healthy trust-fund account from your parents, anyone can make enough spare change on the side of a proper career to be able to call themselves a journalist.

By Shane Cubis

Modern journalism is all about having another source of income to rely on. Whether it’s dealing drugs, prostitution, or, worst of all, writing for News Corp, success requires you to diversify away from the one thing that is now proven to not make any money: journalism. Nowadays being a ‘journalist’ mainly involves re-writing Wikipedia, and passing on information you read somewhere else. Anyway, you’ve racked up the HELP debt for that Bachelor of Journalism or whatever, so you may as well make the most of it.

How to write a balanced article (balance an expert with an idiot)
Unless you’re being paid to write an op-ed column, your articles must be as exquisitely balanced as the scales of justice. It’s vitally important to show both sides of the story, no matter how obvious the ‘correct’ side is. You are a dispassionate recorder of current events. This means that if you ask a so-called expert for their view on a given topic, you have to ask an idiot too.It sounds like hard work, but don’t worry. As soon as you start sharing your published pieces on social media, the idiots will contact you. On the other hand, if you are writing an op-ed column, feel free to spray whatever’s in your heart without the slightest bit of research. No one can fact-check an opinion. Make sure you refer to anyone you disagree with as a ‘snowflake’. They think they’re precious and unique but they are actually fragile, and it’s not a reference to the colour of their skin, as you accuse them of fraudulently taking government funding and benefits as an Indigenous Australian.What other sides to a story are there, other than the true one?

Before you finish your article, it’s important to have all the facts at your disposal. This doesn’t mean, however, ‘things that actually happened’ is your only source of information. Ask around Google the topic of your piece and see what dissenting opinions pop up. Remember, quotes are great for filling out a word count, and as long as you link back to the original source you’re good to grab as much direct speech as possible. After all, if someone says something in public, that makes it public domain. Anyway, you should be treating every story as though it was a journalistic Rashômon. If it’s about coral bleaching in the Great Barrier Reef, grab a quote from an Adani spokesperson, a local surfer, Tony Abbott and the owner of a scuba diving company (doesn’t have to be a Queenslander, obviously). That way, you’ll have plenty of words to put on the page, without having to pass judgement on anyone’s opinion. That’s for the reader to decide. And, well, the subs who fact-check the piece, write the captions and headline. Hahaha-hahahaha…

Good sources of information, versus elitist ones
If you want to be known as a brilliant writer who leaves a gasping, select audience of hand-picked readers in awe with every dripping jewel of crafted prose, go write an allegorical novel about a clumsy vixen’s sexual awakening at the hands of a smooth-handed scribe, or become a columnist for The Monthly. Most normal readers don’t give a shit about your throwaway references to fin de siècle political movements or Kurosawa films or what Ben Chifley would have thought about all of this. That goes double for your sources. Don’t be a goddamn elitist. No one likes it, and no one clicks on it. Here’s a handy guide to sourcing your material.

YOUR UNCLE AFTER FOUR WOODSTOCKS: GOOD
A FEDERAL POLITICIAN: BAD
Ask yourself this: who’s going to be better informed about what’s going wrong with this once-great nation? Your uncle, who spends all day trawling through a huge variety of Facebook groups dedicated to the pure love of Australia, or some bastard politician who’s robbing pensioners to pay queue-jumpers to take jobs from disabled battlers who shouldn’t be on welfare in the first place if they’re able to join a protest march against our brave boys fighting ISIS so that every child of the Southern Cross can continue to celebrate Australia Day on January 26 as God and Captain Arthur Phillip intended, no matter what this smart-arsed Andrew P Street bloke your cousin keeps sharing on my bloody wall just to stir me up – and it’s not bloody working mate, trust me – might have to say about it? Fair dinkum, more dollars than sense, some people.

MAN IN THE STREET: GOOD
ANDREW P STREET: BAD
There’s a reason that we talk about political ideas passing the pub test. It’s because the man in the street is a very good judge of what’s bullshit. Fairfax columnist Andrew P Street, on the other hand, is an Adelaide-born elitist who only pretends to like Barnesy and sneers at your greatest hits albums. Don’t quote him. Unless he’s standing in the street. Or a pub, I suppose. Actually, this is a grey area.

TWITTER: GOOD
PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL: BAD
Everyone’s on Twitter these days. It’s relatable. Plus it’s heaps easier to search than the university library.

A CLOSE FRIEND OF THE COUPLE: GOOD
THE PERSON WHO ACTUALLY SAID IT: BAD
This one’s specific to gossip mags, mostly. You might think it’s more hoity-toity to throw around anonymous sources, like you’re Woodward and Bernstein grabbing confidential information from Deep Throat or whatever (I never got to the end of that film), but really, it’s way more elitist to name-check the people who are so close to a celebrity couple on the rocks that they know the intimate details of their trainwreck relationship, but not so close that they wouldn’t anonymously sell out said couple in the glossy pages of some scandalous publication. As an unrelated serendipitous bonus, it’s heaps harder for Bec and Lleyton to sue if they don’t know who said all that shit about them.

WIKIPEDIA: GOOD
ANYTHING ELSE: BAD
If the boss is riding you, I suppose it’s okay to click on one of those footnotes to see where the info originally came from, but seriously, Wikipedia’s laden down with editors who are hyperfocused on ensuring the correct information is present and correct in Each entry. Plus, it’s all free so you don’t even have to say ‘according to Wikipedia’ when you’re presenting the facts of the matter. It’s a given that it’s from Wikipedia.

This article first appeared in The Anti Experts Guide to Everything (CQ8): buy it here. 

Government orders plebiscite on Marriage At First Sight

ENTERTAINMENT |

AFTER once again leaving the nation divided, the Federal Government has announced their intention to launch another national plebiscite over whether Married at First Sight should be allowed to continue as a television program given its challenge to ‘traditional values’.

“I’ve never seen the show myself,” admitted Arts Minister Mitch Fiefield. “But it’s trending every night, for better or worse, and we could only dream of that kind of popularity in an election year.”

The Prime Minister used the first day of Parliament for the year to take a non-committal stance, appealing to all Australians to have their say.

“Whether you’re a senior Australian who has never watched the show but been outraged by talkback radio, an out of touch dad trying to appear relevant to his kids and co-workers, a bitter screenwriter on their high horse about the lack of original content, or even a vapid dolt who actually thinks it’s quality programming, this is a chance for all Australians to talk about anything other than our refugee policy, approval ratings or whatever might remind them who we are as we edge closer to the election.”

“Virgins, threesomes and people with nothing in common being forced together. It’s just like schoolies week – or the bible. Whether that’s a good thing or not is up to you.”

The government has also promised that, should the plebiscite pass, they’ll also re-name their Immigration policy to the more appealing ‘Manus at First Sight’.

Chaser Video: Rupert Murdoch Standby Obit

VIDEOS |
A standby obituary for global media giant Rupert Murdoch. From Season 2 Episode 2 of The Hamster Wheel, aired October 3 2012.

Bigamist to appear in every episode of ‘Married at First Sight’

NEWS |

A Salt Lake City man has had all 13 of his applications for the next series of reality series Married at First Sight (MAFS) accepted, meaning he could potentially have 25 new wives by the end of filming. “I can’t wait for the series to start,” said bigamist Sean Huggins, “MAFS is going to be a great challenge, even if it’s the same challenge I face every day.”

Getting on the show is a dream come true for the devout Mormon, who was bitterly disappointed in 2017 when his application to play Family Feud with his multiple wives was rejected. “They said we’d have an unfair advantage,” he recalled bitterly, “but I think it was just because they didn’t have enough buzzers.”

Huggins says his current wives are looking forward to the show, though he acknowledged he has not got around to asking them all.

“Sean’s unique life experiences will really add to the show,” said executive producer Aaron Jones, “as well as cutting down on camera and travel costs.”

“Some people may argue his inclusion is an insult to the sanctity of marriage – and indeed the common good of all humanity – but hey, so is this whole fucking show.”

Huggins says he hopes his family’s participation in MAFs will educate the public about bigamy. “The more people who realise bigamy is normal, healthy way to live, the greater my pool of potential future wives,” Huggins said.

 

 

Man dies doing what he hated

NEWS |

A grumpy Queanbeyan man has passed away while double-checking the inventory log on a warehouse computer system.

Colleagues said they were shocked by the demise of the 61-year old, but took comfort in the knowledge that he’d “died doing what he hated most.”

Des Lomond’s snail-like progress through the middle management of the Department of Agriculture’s Queanbeyan storage centre was halted by a massive coronary on Tuesday, just as the clerk was double checking his inventory entries for the day.

Brian McMillan, who occupied the cubicle next to Lomond, remembers a “quiet, depressing man, who loathed his job.”

“Sure, Des’s job was largely unnecessary, paper-pushing bureaucratic work of the most soul-destroying kind” said Macmillan. “But on the other hand… actually, that’s pretty much it. He died doing something that he detested with all his being. I’m sure if Des knew that his time was up, he would be unsurprised to find out he died at his desk.”

It is estimated that Lomond could have been dead for as long as an hour before medical help was summoned.

“Des was always pretty much motionless at his desk anyway, and everyone was so used to his fixed staring at the screen that no-one thought anything was wrong. It was only after someone noticed he wasn’t making petulant sighing noises that alarm bells started to ring.”

McMillan and his co-workers remain philosophical about Lomond’s passing. “I’ll remember Des as a man who stitched out the tapestry of life in shades of grey” said one. “I’m there is an afterlife, I’m sure that the miserable bastard still has a scowl on his face over the way he kicked the bucket.”

(Originally published in Edition 47 of The Chaser)

Can this picture of a majestic bin chicken out rate the Today show?

NATIONAL |

The Today show’s TV ratings yesterday were a measly 177,000 viewers. That’s about one sixth of the audience the Chaser website sees on a good day. Hell, it’s less than a lot of kids making Youtube videos on a $5 a week allowance. Which got us thinking – just how low is the bar to match the Today show’s ratings?

To test this, we’ve decided to post this image of an ibis eating out of a bin that we found on Google image search, and we’ll be updating the number of views this posts gets hourly for the rest of the day until we beat the Today show.

Be sure to share.

Also if you want us to help beat the Daily Telegraph’s measly print subscription numbers of just 192,000, be sure to subscribe to the Chaser Quarterly. At just $5 per month, that’s some great savings on kindling and bin liners.

UPDATE HOUR 1:

The noble winged car horn has gathered an impressive 7000 viewers in its first hour as an insufferable breakfast show host, but there’s still plenty of time for the Ibis to rule the roost and take out the top perch and the viewers are growing fast. Be sure to share the anointed long pigeon on your social media to help it take out the top spot.

Also shout out to Elle Snow for this quality contribution:

HOUR 2:

The egyptian god of wheely-bins has gained a name! Say hello to Australia’s newest Breakfast Show Host ‘Karl Stealinyochip’. In other news, the downunder leather dove has amassed a following of 15,000 loyal viewers since its debut on the internet this morning, making it officially more popular than the entire show run of [name of show censored because some of our best friends were Tonightly writers].

Also, going by the metrics that the Daily Telegraph uses to calculate its newspaper readership, we can claim our actual numbers are 4x as large because we assume every reader will show this image to at least four other people which means Australia’s favourite bin-chook just skyrocketed to a record 60,000 viewers! We’re almost there.

To celebrate, we paid someone in India $2 for this amazing photoshop job:

HOUR 4:

The Daily Show’s Ronny Chieng has liked the campaign on twitter so the Ibis has officially cracked the American TV market!

Also yes we missed an hour, turns out breakfast beers are a bad idea, but strewth this BBQ bandit is a ratings bonfire – 33,000 views and counting (that’s 132,000 views in Daily Telegraph numbers). According to Wikipedia this means that we probably have the entire population of Dubbo watching our wonderbird.

We are all far to drunk to work a computer right now, but if anyone wants to start an online petition to give the chook it’s own prime-time TV show email us a link at [email protected] and we’ll happily give it a spruik.

To sign off on this hour we’ll leave you with this thought: Actors used to be considered the scum of the earth but are now worshiped like gods, so they’ve had the exact reverse career trajectory of ibises.

HOUR 5

It has been very kindly pointed out to us by the internet that we are, in no uncertain terms, idiots. We’d only been counting the views on our actual website, and not our social reach! Now, it should be pointed out that we believe including people who just happened to glancingly view the ibis while scrolling through their newsfeeds is definitely cheating, and as a result we will definitely be including them in the ratings.

That means the total number of people who have viewed the bin chicken is now:

50,000 website views (!!!) PLUS

79,000 views on Facebook, plus

13,540 twitter views AND

No idea about the Reddit views because they removed that feature in an “upgrade” (but we did make it to the front page!?!) So lets say the upvotes (5000) x 2

Which gives us:

152, 540 views of the long billed bin bastard. Wow. If we hadn’t just shown the working of how we fudged that number, it would be really impressive! We’re still aiming to hit that sweet 180,000 view mark on our website alone though, so keep those clicks coming.

HOUR 6

We sent Charles out for supplies many hours ago, and our hope for his safe return dwindles by the minute. We may be forced to eat the dogs. Send snacks.

In lighter news, we’ve hit 100,000 views! Holy cow, I think it’s safe to say we very much expected this and are not at all shocked. We’re toe to toe with CSI: MIAMI for viewer counts now, though it’s safe to say the ibis has far surpassed them in on screen charisma.

For comparison, the population of Tonga, which has a seat at the UN, is just 106,479 people. Are we saying this picture of an ibis eating out of a bin should therefore also have a seat at the UN? Almost certainly yes.

Here’s some other great suggestions for roles this iconic dumpster-diving dodo should be promoted to:

HOUR 7ish

A lovely reddit user TyrialFrost has corrected our maths on the Reddit views:

The reddit impressions are not calculated appropriately.

General rule of one vote for every ten views.

6703 votes = 67k Impr.

We’ve since hit 10,200 votes, so … that’s a big number.

As for the official Chaser website numbers, we’ve now realised that nobody else can see the stats but us so we can say whatever we want any nobody can disprove it. As such we now have over a billion views, and are without a doubt the single biggest media conglomerate on the planet, surpassing even Disney. We are calling this the Netflix rating method.

THE FINAL TALLY

Well it’s been 24 hours, and you’ve all been waiting with baited breath, and now the final numbers are in, and it’s both good news and bad news.

The mighty trashodactyl proved mighty popular, and in the end that proved to be it’s downfall. While the public were more than onboard to see this ibis soar to victory, as usual the secret powers that be pulling the strings had a different idea.

Around 5pm yesterday our gentle feathered friends campaign came crashing down as, in a seemingly co-ordinated campaign, the giants of silicon valley one by one banned what had clearly become a challenger to their dominance of people’s screens.

First came Reddit. Though /r/Australia threw their weight behind the campaign to deify the bin chicken, sending it to the front page of the website, at the height of its popularity the bin chicken was booted from the platform without an explanation. Are we suggesting the perhaps the rich and powerful today show hosts paid someone to off their successful challenger? We think the evidence speaks for itself.

Next came Facebook, who, terrified of the power being amassed by the Sydney skyrat, demanded we pay money to keep our post appearing in people’s feeds, despite it performing better than “99% of posts on the site”.

Then in a final smackdown, just as the ibis began to see the light at the end of the tunnel, tragedy struck. Google, evil world dominating IT Giant who we entrusted with the task of counting every single one of Karl Stealinyochips loyal followers, pulled a stunt more underhanded than an Aussie cricketer, declaring that the wild popularity of our beloved Ibis was impossible, and must instead have been a botnet designed to generate ad revenue. At the stroke of midnight, just as the title of greatest Breakfast show ratings was in reach, Google chopped down the reported view count to a measly 40,000, burying our bin chicken in a decision so garbage even an Ibis couldn’t eat it’s its way out.

BUT the bin Chicken was not beaten yet. Because it turns out we had one other secret traffic measuring tool up our sleeves that nine’s deep pockets couldn’t bribe their way out of.

And so we can proudly declare that according to AWstats, the Chaser website’s own internal traffic monitor, our legendary Bin Chicken enjoyed a whopping 158,202 views in just 24 hours! Combine this with the 5.4 thousand likes and shares on Facebook, 10.5 thousand upvotes on Reddit, and 12 retweets on twitter, and we think it’s safe to say that while we may not have managed to out rate Today in the end, the fact that one stupid picture of a bird could basically match the viewership of a nationally broadcast breakfast show with a budget that rivals the GDP of some nation states, has more than proven our point.

So that’s it for Karl Stealinyochip for now, but with an audience of this size, we’re sure we’ll see him again some day soon, probably at the Logies, where he’ll feel right at home wallowing in all the trash Channel Nine puts out.

SHOCK LAST MINUTE UPDATE

Well, the website may have stumbled at the finish line, but we’re proud to say the Facebook numbers for the ol chook just came in, and lo and behold:

Mission accomplished. Nine, time to give this bird a primetime contract.

Discovery of shallow grave ends 18-year search for Wally

NEWS |

The search for the missing adventurer popularly known as “Wally” may have come to a tragic conclusions, after police sectioned off an area of remote bushland Friday night. Detectives have since confirmed that a decomposed has been located, and according to an unnamed source, the corpse was dressed in a faded, bloodstained red-and-white jumper, wearing round-rimmed glasses, and buried with a cane.

“The case has been especially difficult because of the mysterious nature of the victim,” said police constable Darren Large. “We knew him as Wally, but according to Interpol he also went by aliases such as Waldo, Willy, Walter and Effy.” False sightings in locations as various as Paris, Timbuktu and ancient Egypt also hampered the investigation.

Suspicion has once again fallen on self-described “arch-nemesis” Odlaw, and some investigators have also mooted the involvement of back-packer killer Ivan Milat. A sword wielding Arab tribesman and a band of angry knights are also known to have carried grudges against Wally.

Wally’s disappearance was something of a cause celebre in the early 1990s, when scores of volunteers joined the search for the traveller. The hunt was, at times, made problematic by the large number of people who looked and dressed like the missing man. Authorities took the unorthodox step of releasing books and TV shows filled with images of Wally, in the hopes of jogging someone’s memory.

Wally is survived by fiancee Wanda, ex-girlfriend Wilma and dog Woof.

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