BOOK: How to Make Your Baby an Internet Celebrity (2014)

How to Make Your Baby an Internet Celebrity Year: 2014 Author: Rick Chillot Length: 128 pages I'm starting to think that these satirical "how-to" books genuinely only have one joke. If you've read the title and a few pages, you get the joke. Books like How to Talk to Your Cat About Gun Safety or How to Traumatize Your Children wear out their singular joke much too fast. While How to Make Your Baby an Internet Celebrity doesn't have a lot of depth, at least it has cute pictures and diagrams of babies. Humor books with a "bit" like the ones mentioned above are usually better when they fully commit. That's why I prefer The Baby Owner's Manual for its ability to translate raising a baby into car mechanic terms. How to Make Your Baby an Internet Celebrity isn't quite that clever, since you might read it not knowing it's satire and try these techniques on your own baby. And perhaps my appreciation of satirical...
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MOVIE: Weird – The Al Yankovic Story (2022)

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story Year: 2022 Rating: PG-13 Length: 108 minutes / 1.80 hours When it comes to biopics, there seems to be a natural attraction to musicians. The rise from obscurity into the descent of the artist via "sex, drugs, and rock & roll" is so ubiquitous, the script practically writes itself. We've seen it time and time again with such movies as Bohemian Rhapsody (2018), Rocketman (2019), and Elvis (2022). Because of this (or possibly in spite of it), the parody biopic of "Weird" Al Yankovic, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022) hits all the notes you'd expect of these kinds of films, but in a way that's so tongue-in-cheek, it's basically poking out the other side. Having been a fan of Weird Al for some time now (and recalling his first movie, UHF (1989)), it is amusing to see how some elements of truth shine through in this mock-u-drama. Some of the casting choices were quite hilarious, including the cameos played...
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BOOK: How to Traumatize Your Children (2007)

How to Traumatize Your Children: 7 Proven Methods to Help You Screw Up Your Kids Deliberately and with Skill Year: 2007 Author: Knock Knock Length: 144 pages A friend of mine loaned me this book to help prepare me for the joys of parenting by using a slightly humorous slant on the standard parenting books that hand out helpful advice for parents to be. While I chuckled at some of the pages as I flipped through the book, once I sat down to read it, I almost immediately became depressed. Sure, How to Traumatize Your Children is tongue-in-cheek, but that only lasts through the first few chapters. Overall, it’s virtually a traumatizing look into actual bad parenting instead of a comedic take on it. The moment that it hit me how real these “methods” are was when I started to realize many parents inadvertently use them to their children’s disadvantage. From my own experience, and observing the experiences of others, this book presents each one of these methods in...
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BOOK: Fake Science 101 (2012)

Fake Science 101: A Less-Than-Factual Guide to Our Amazing World Year: 2012 Author: Phil Edwards Length: 272 pages One of the challenges of creating content on the internet is that it is usually quickly and readily consumed and forgotten by the web-browsing public. Monetizing this content is even more difficult because of the aforementioned reasons. That being said, there are many ways the creators of internet content can make some money off of their product. Sometimes this takes the form of T-shirts or other, physical items, but oftentimes the choice of internet creators is a book. For Fake Science, which uses Tumblr for its regular posts, publishing a fake science textbook seemed like a good choice. Unfortunately, since a lot of internet content is quickly consumed, an almost 300 page book seems a little tedious to read once the initial novelty of the idea wears off. There are certainly a lot of amusing bits in this book, but they tend to be lost in the noise of...
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