September 10, 2008
A 10-month old Richmond Web site calling itself “Tobacco Avenue” must think itself to be absolutely hilarious, a media critic said today.
Though while its content could be considered “witty” or “smart” by some – or “unfunny” and “weak at best” by others – the Web site is, at its core, a completely ripped-off, hack local version of national satirical news site The Onion, the critic said.
“How lame. On a near-daily basis, b
esides the weekends, [Tobacco Avenue] has managed to pander many topics across the Richmond area in a very formulaic, wholly unoriginal fashion,” said Michael D. Lieber, who does not actually exist, and whose name was culled together from random first and last names thought up by the site’s writers. ”It is blatantly obvious that these writers have too much free time on their hands, were perhaps overly inspired by The Onion, ‘The Daily Show’ or ‘SNL’-type themes, or perhaps just need a girlfriend or boyfriend to give them something better to do in their spare time.”
Added Lieber: “Typically, based on the site’s consistent formula, after writing a paragraph such as the one above, Tobacco Avenue often includes a quote that gets its own separate paragraph, usually in order to emphasize a point, which is the only purpose of this sentence.”
Since December 2007, topics on the site have often ranged from local happenings to national news and politics, “which is, sadly, just as The Onion does,” Lieber said. Columns purported to be penned by “guest columnists” also reflect a very Onion-y tone. And quite often, a second daily update consisting of only a photo and headline is posted around noon, which, unfortunately, is something that the vegetable-named humor Web site does as well, he said.
“Really,” he added, “does [the Richmond fake news site] do anything original at all, besides the neat pictures that are rotated at the top of the page twice weekly?”
Countering Lieber’s criticisms of the site, Tobacco Avenue editor and publisher Randolph J. Strummer Jr. responded to the 15-year media critic with sharp words.
“Razor, scissors, broken glass and table corners,” Strummer said. “Knife.”
Lastly, Lieber notes, toward the end of every article, Tobacco Avenue typically adds a related news reference as a final “kicker joke,” such as the proceeding sentence.
“It is generally accepted by its core readers that, aside from the occasional sophomoric joke about a body part or related function, Tobacco Avenue generally does publish humor that is targeted to a very intellectual, educated, fun-loving audience,” Lieber said, though he quickly pointed out that there are exceptions, such as local blogger John Sarvay of Buttermilk & Molasses, who recently claimed that he had “never laughed” at the humor blog until seeing on the site a brightly-colored cartoon about a duck.
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I guess I always knew but never really made the connection but Tobacco is a vegetable. A vegetable that can please as well as kill, who would have thought?
Yeah that Sarvay guy? Total wet blanket.
Oh, I get it.
I always thought you were pretending to be Murphy Brown.
Richmond area blog readers amused.
When did TA become stirical?