How Does The Spectator Humor Department Write Its Articles?

As another year ends for The Spectator, the Humor Department has decided, for the first time ever, to reveal its classified, ancient, and unbelievably impactful writing secrets. Yes, this academically acclaimed institution, the source of all serious high-level journalism, has decided to show off its genius to the layperson. We, the writers of the greatest department, will now reveal this official, department-sanctioned account of the Humor Department’s revolutionary and unbelievable writing process. Prepare yourself to be astounded by the innovative and revolutionary strategies used by the esteemed Humor Department. 

All good ideas begin at a department meeting, so that is where we shall start. To start with, the key to writing good humor articles is turning off our brains and not thinking. Humor writers always engage in friendly competition at the opening of a meeting, fighting over who can write the strangest statements (some of our writers are really, really… how do I put it? Freaky). The infinitely generous and benevolent editors then help us enter the Humor version of the flow state by consuming our sanity, something any normal human could do. This process is all for our own good—the editors don’t benefit at all, and we get to come up with ideas. Following the onset of genius, all Humor members outline their wildest, most unbelievable fantasies on a large whiteboard. Of course, even our fever-induced dreams aren’t considered unhinged enough for our articles. We also discuss the most exciting and significant current events to make boring fanfiction out of, from domestic politics to foreign affairs. The grand tribal rituals then begin by dancing around a fire, chanting in Latin to summon the spirits of the cat plane, particularly our ancestral editor, Selinyancat. In order to induce the spirits down, we burn candy offerings in the central fire, releasing pungent plastic smells. After descending from the cat plane, the reverent ghosts of editors past fly into our heads and cause hallucinations, which we frantically jot down.

After coming up with a bunch of random jokes (especially those about Stuyvesant) that aren’t particularly relevant (or funny), we insert them into the article without any context. Especially brainrot. Brainrot is so great when you force it into the middle of an article to remind everyone of their scrolling, isn’t it? Our Stuyvesant jokes are so great too… jokes are even more funny when you’ve heard them several thousand times. Next, we come up with as many puns as we can in order to inject a bit of pun into our articles. Fun… pun… get it (we’re so funny hahahahaha; we’re definitely so hilarious and everyone loves puns stuffed in the middle of nowhere)? Our editors are constantly motivating us to work with words and rewards whenever our minds stagnate. Words such as the whip (definitely verbal…) and fantastic rewards such as not being hit with the whip or not starving in a basement. These ensure that we always submit our first drafts on time. And if we don’t… nothing happens to those writers… ever again. 

After our original drafts are complete, they are sent to the editors, who then proceed to mark every single sentence as not wild enough and give amazing comments such as “redundancy is redundant” (don’t worry editors, we love you). In order to thank them for their service, all writers congregate at Stuyvesant’s basement following the completion of all edits to willingly offer their fingers, pencils, vocabulary words, and sanity as sacrifices. Those are definitely all things normal people want and not the desires of eldritch demons. After we follow their edits to the last word, we writers submit our articles one final time to the whims of the editors. From there, our articles are scrubbed of all content critical of the department and our supreme, glorious, and most honorable editors.

Finally, after hundreds of edits, a little humor article is sent to the second draft, where the Copy Department, responsible for grammar, adds more edits. Of course, we can never accept these edits; otherwise, Copy will seek our blood. The edits are just there to make the article look cool and grammatically correct, and aren’t there for the actual writers. That would just be ridiculous. From then on, the entire article is out of our hands. The editors are probably working on imbuing it with their occult powers, preparing it for publishing. We, the writers, on the other hand, are able to rest in peace until, inevitably, an adult finds one of our articles on the website. We are then constantly embarrassed by it until the next article comes out. Following the adult’s discovery, the whole cycle starts again, and the writers pull up to the next meeting to continue the cult—I mean department.