1.) http://www.theonion.com/video/report-leading-cause-of-death-in-us-is-god-needing,35522/
The first satirical piece I found is titled “Report: Leading Cause of Death in U.S. Is God Needing Another Angel.” I found this piece on the Onion, a satire news organization. This video talks about how the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a new report stating that the leading cause of death in the U.S. is God needing another angel. According to the video, over 700,000 deaths in the U.S. in 2013 were due to God needing angels whose hearts were too beautiful for this world. Janet Paulsen, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, said that before we thought that death was a natural process which could be caused by thousands of terrifying causes, “but we now know that mostly it is because our loving father needs more angels to live with him forever in heaven.” The anchor in the video also said that this statistic won’t change until God decides that he has enough angles to help him paint rainbows in the sky. The video later makes the claim that overweight people died because their hearts were too big. This is a bad example because it is not true that all overweight people have big hearts. I believe this article is satirizing God and organized religion, as well as overweight people.
2.) http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/26/business/media/with-drone-to-home-service-netflix-uses-satire-against-amazon.html
This second piece is titled “With ‘Drone to Home’ Service, Netflix Uses Satire Against Amazon.” In the video included within the article Netflix’s General Manager – DVD division, Hank Breeggemann, introduces the company’s new same day delivery subscription service called Drone2Home. The video shows a drone delivering a DVD to a woman who is on the phone at work in an office. Her papers fly everywhere as the drone approaches her desk. In another scene, a woman is running away as the drone follow her. The worker in the factory tries to control this drone, but it ends up exploding as its crashes into a building. Another funny scene in the video is when the drone enters a public bathroom where a man is currently at a urinal. The video ends by showing thousands of drones leaving the Netflix warehouse. Satire is seen in the video through the precise deliveries by the drones. The drone drops the DVD in the lap of a man sitting in a park. Another drone drops the DVD into the open sunroof of a car. This article and video target Air Prime, Amazon’s drone delivery plan.
3.) http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-collections/424676/march-madness
The satirical piece is titled “Linsanity!” and found on Colbert Nation. This video is from February 2012, and Stephen Colbert begins by congratulating the New York Giants for beating the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI. Colbert then states how a huge parade was held for the Super Bowl winning Giants. He then says, “Iraq war vets, we will get to you eventually.” Colbert is satirizing the immense value Americans give to sports. Colbert then goes on to talk about Jeremy Lin, who went from being a benchwarmer to NBA star for putting up astounding numbers during his first few games for the New York Knicks. Colbert shows clips from CNN where CNN hosts say that Lin came out of nowhere. Colbert responds by saying, “Yes he came out of nowhere, which is my nickname for Harvard.” Here Colbert is poking fun at the highly respected institution of higher education by completely undermining its value. Colbert declares himself as “Lin-sane”. He goes on to say that Lin does not have any corporate sponsors and was wondering if Lin would be interested in endorsing his products: Linoleum tiles and Jeremy lint. Again, Colbert is poking fun at Lin’s name as well as at his sudden popularity, as known as Linsanity.