NEW YORK, NY — In a development analysts are calling “inevitable,” several leading satire websites, including The Turnip, NotTheNews, and Wonk Babylon, announced mass layoffs and bankruptcy filings this week, citing what industry insiders are calling “the Trump problem.”
“We just couldn’t compete with the real headlines anymore,” said Terry Costigan, former editor-in-chief of The Turnip. “Every time we wrote a parody, Trump beat us to it — with a press release.”
Among the real stories that broke parody systems wide open this week:
- Trump unveiled a “Self-Deport” smartphone app promising immigrants “the easy way or the hard way.”
- Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declared that the American dream “has nothing to do with affordable goods” but instead “starts with $55,000 Teslas wrapped in flags.”
- JD Vance was air-dropped into Greenland, despite widespread protests, to “soften the annexation vibes.”
- Steve Bannon claimed his apparent Nazi salute was “actually just a big wave.”
“We once ran a headline that said, ‘Trump Declares Recession a Sacred Fast unto the Lord.’ Two days later, he called inflation a ‘spiritual purge,’” said Costigan. “We can’t write better satire than that.”
Even Babylon Bee Is Concerned
Sources inside Babylon Bee, a satirical site with historically conservative leanings, reportedly held an emergency writers’ retreat last weekend to ask: “Is it still satire if the headline just…happens?”
One draft headline — “Trump Demands Third Term via Apprentice-Style Reality Show Coup” — had to be scrapped after Trump told NBC he was considering “methods” for a third term, and announced a televised VP competition.
A New Era of “Unintentional Satire”
“Some of our best pieces used to take days to develop,” said Lillian Kwon, former staff writer at NotTheNews. “Now we spend that time just double-checking that Trump didn’t already say it out loud.”
Other casualties of the moment include The Onion, which quietly shuttered its political section after losing three writers to nervous breakdowns, and ChristianSnark, which was absorbed into actual sermon footage from Joel Osteen’s YouTube channel without anyone noticing.
What Comes Next?
As satire collapses, some displaced writers are pivoting to scriptwriting for cable news, while others are offering ghostwriting services for politicians in need of more “realistic” material.
Still, a few are hopeful.
“We’re not giving up,” said Costigan. “We’re just shifting our model. Instead of trying to parody reality, we’re going to start publishing it exactly as is… and see if anyone notices.”
