satire? in this economy?
the call is coming from inside the man cave
satire used to be a survival tactic. a scalpel. a scream in disguise.
it was how you said the unsayable without getting hauled offstage. or worse: ignored. and at its best? satire wasn’t just funny — it was furious.
heathers. bojack horseman. american psycho. the menu. barbie.
entire stories built on a dare: what if we told the truth, but louder? what if we dressed it up in a joke so sharp you wouldn’t realize it sliced until you looked down and saw blood? and yet: how often do you hear people say “wait, that was satire?”
every man with a podcast watched fight club and thought tyler durden was the blueprint. every finance bro read american psycho and said “he’s just like me fr.” every straight couple watched 500 days of summer and decided summer was the villain. every high school boy quoted joker like it was scripture and then complained women weren’t funny.
they don’t get the joke — because they are the joke.
and nothing offends a man more than the punchline landing squarely on his jaw. but that’s the magic trick, isn’t it? satire only works if you assume your audience is smart enough to catch it. so when they don’t? it’s both tragic and hilarious.
no one knew that better than lenny bruce.
dragged through courtrooms and banned from venues not because he lied, but because he told the truth in a language america found indecent. he stood onstage with a microphone and a mind like a blade, and he said what everyone else was afraid to say — about politics, about sex, about religion, about america. and they threw him in jail for it. he said the quiet part loud. and they threw him in jail.
(america, baby: land of the free speech — unless you actually use it.)
satire asks for critical thought — and we live in a culture that sold its critical thinking skills for blue light glasses and a stan twitter account.
and now, at this point, i know what you’re thinking: “oh god. she’s about to talk about sabrina carpenter, isn’t she.”
yes. yes i am.
and if you feel the sudden urge to close the tab, that says more about you than it does about her.
because she is the reason for this piece. the whole spiral. the catalyst and the case study. because nothing reveals the state of the world faster than the way it reacts to a woman who dares to be clever, sexual, and self-aware — all at once.
but we’ll get to her in a moment.
first, let’s talk about why people hate satire. or maybe more accurately: why people hate women who use it.
the truth is, most people don’t hate satire. they just don’t get it. satire doesn’t hand you the answer key. it makes you work. it asks you to lean in, to read between the lines, to listen for the wink behind the words. but most people? they just want the laugh track. they want to know who to root for and when to clap. they want the monologue, not the mirror.
take the marvelous mrs. maisel as an example — a woman built like a dress mannequin, polished and poised, cracking jokes that slice deeper than they land. she’s a walking satire of the 1950s housewife: perfect hair, perfect dinner parties, perfectly unraveling. or fleabag — that hot mess of a masterpiece. she’s self-aware to the point of combustion, a modern woman who looks straight at the camera and dares you to flinch. both women are exaggerations. caricatures. funhouse reflections of femininity stretched and distorted until the truth bleeds through the cracks. and if you don’t get the satire? you miss the fury hiding behind the mascara. you reduce them to “quirky” or “relatable” or “broken,” and you miss that they were never trying to be liked in the first place.
reading satire is a skill. an art. and most people are out here trying to paint by numbers with their eyes closed. they whine “this is confusing” when really it’s just their fragile egos shattering at feelings they can’t scroll away from. they sneer “this is cringe” when what they’re really admitting is “i wasn’t part of the joke, and that stings.” especially if the joke comes from a woman with great timing and better cheekbones.
sabrina carpenter dropped manchild and it seems like the internet forgot how metaphors work.
people are still yelling, “that’s anti‑men!”. like that’s a fresh take. they sit through the twang, the shotgun cameo, the jet‑ski on wheels barreling down the highway, and they still scream: “she’s insulting men!”
look, if the music isn’t glittered in pink, they can’t see sabotage. the song isn’t coated in barbiecore. it’s dusty. wind‑blown. coated in cacti. we’re past the glam; we’re in mad max meets dolly parton chemistry class. sabrina is in micro‑daisy dukes and wielding a shotgun, and they’re asking, “but is it still for us?”
the track rides a sly country‑pop backbone, with a little twang, a little disco bounce as she hitchhikes through the wild west of male immaturity. the music video is a surreal road trip through caricatures. it’s a western parody, homage to thelma & louise’s sass. but satire is the steering wheel.
this isn’t glitter as camouflage or pink provocation. it’s sun‑yellow dust and a wicked wink. it’s elle woods in a dusty miniskirt with a shotgun behind her back. it’s dolly‑inspired corkscrew curls crowned with tumbleweed sass.
satire isn’t dead. it just stopped explaining itself to people who can’t read subtext. and by subtext, i mean: she literally said “manchild”. that is the text. what did you think this was? a ballad? this isn’t even a diss track. it’s gender disappointment with a beat. she said your vibe is off, and she said it with a wink and a smirk. iconic.
apparently, a girlie pop song about emotionally stunted men is enough to trigger a moral panic. but that’s the tragedy, isn’t it? we’ve lost our ear for irony, our taste for the slow burn of a well-placed insult. sabrina handed us the punchline on a silver platter, and we called it “mean” instead of “clever”.
imagine being so fragile that you can’t survive a song by a short n’ sweet girl.
“she called them stupid slow useless!” do you have an irony deficiency???
this is country satire 101. say it bluntly, hold the sugar. she’s not here to console fragile male ego. she’s pointing the shotgun at the phony cowboy swagger.
and yet: “if a man wrote this, it’d be sexist!” “this is misandrist!” like men haven’t been writing sexist shit for centuries and calling it literature, art, philosophy, scripture. a girl blinks too hard and it’s a feminist statement. but sabrina? she’s not writing diary entries. she’s writing trapdoors. if you fall in, that’s on you.
we are in the age of the knowing wink. the glossed lip. the curled eyelash. the girlie pop star who plays dumb just long enough to make you show your cards. the girl is a satirist. and you’re mad because you missed the joke. that’s not her fault. that’s just embarrassing.
and this isn’t even her first time.
when she released because i liked a boy, people acted like she’d written a manifesto instead of a heartbreak song. they dissected her tone, her outfits, her interviews. accused her of weaponizing innocence, of playing the victim, of being too obvious — or not obvious enough.
and now it’s manchild and the very controversial album cover.
yeah, getting on all fours in a designer mini dress while a man yanks your hair like it’s a leash might seem anti-feminist. but let’s be for real.
she’s not glorifying submission — she’s parodying it. she’s taking the fantasy, the fetish, the pin-up pulp novel of it all, and saying: is this what you wanted? does this make me easier to swallow?
it’s satire. it’s costume. it’s camp with blood in its mouth, teeth bared behind a lip-glossed smile. she’s playing the part of the perfect little thing — submissive, sexual, stripped of agency — and you still don’t get the joke? the stilettos, the soft-focus lighting, the hand in her hair — it’s all bait. and you took it.
she’s mocking the men who want her pretty and pliable. mocking the women who think femininity is weakness. mocking the way you only feel safe when a woman’s power is dressed up as passivity.
she’s not saying “i’m a good girl.” she’s saying “you only like me when i pretend to be.” and then she hands you the leash — with a smile. that’s not submission. that’s strategy.
and if you missed that? congratulations. you are the manchild.
the pendulum swings again. suddenly she’s too mean. too clever. too much. it’s almost like she’s never allowed to be exactly what she is.
and she’s not alone.
megan thee stallion said “hot girl summer” and people said she was corrupting the youth.
lana del rey said “goddamn man-child” and they said she was setting feminism back a decade.
charli xcx drops satire disguised as bangers every fiscal quarter and they still call her unserious.
beyoncé released cowboy carter and they said, “but is it country enough?”
it’s never enough. or it’s too much. or it’s the wrong kind of rage. unless it’s tragic and easily quote-tweeted, no one knows what to do with it. unless you’re crying or dead, a woman’s art has to come with an instruction manual.
and here’s the exhausting part: women are still expected to make clear art. underline the meaning. explain the joke. be brave, be sad, be serious, be inspirational. otherwise? you’re just fluff. or worse: you’re dangerous. you might be misunderstood. and god forbid someone doesn’t get it.
why do we keep asking women to censor themselves for the comfort of men? why do we keep asking women to declaw their work? to soften the sarcasm? to dull the wit? to be palatable? TED talk feminism in a push-up bra. just in case a man with wi-fi is watching. newsflash: he’s always watching. and he’ll misinterpret it anyway.
but sabrina isn’t spoon-feeding you meaning. she wants you to squint. to double-take. to laugh, then pause, then go: wait. was that a joke? it was. and you were the punchline.
salute the country satire. let the men be confused. let them clutch their pearls as sabrina smirks from the driver’s seat of their own failure.
let her be unserious. let her be clever. let her be hot. let her write songs that sound like rom-coms and hit like revenge plots. let her hold up a mirror and laugh when you flinch.
sabrina doesn’t owe you clarity. she doesn’t owe you legibility. she doesn’t owe you art you can “get” on the first listen. she’s not confused. you are. and she’s not going to shrink so you can feel smarter.
she’s going to put the bow on, bat her lashes, and walk away smiling because you still think the joke was about her.
but it never was.
it was about you.
—
(still waiting for the internet to get the joke)
🎧 this week’s soundtrack
the song that lives inside these words
need i say more? manchild is a masterclass in saying exactly what you mean, with a wink and perfect hair. i love how sabrina’s brain works — i can literally picture her laughing while the internet screams. queen behaviour.
thank you for being here.
whether you meant to arrive or just wandered in through some strange hallway of the internet — i’m grateful you made it to my little corner. it’s a strange thing, to share thoughts into the void and have someone, somehow, receive them. i don’t take it lightly.
typing…still runs on feelings, pop culture spirals, and the generosity of those who believe that overthinking is, actually, an art form worth supporting. simply knowing you’re here, reading what i wrote, feels like its own kind of magic.
if this made you feel something (or at least tilt your head and go hmm), you might consider one of these small joys:
🥐 send a croissant my way — a small, one-time gesture to help keep this soft, chaotic little lighthouse lit.
💌 become a paid subscriber — a way to support the spirals regularly, and receive the occasional extra musing or love letter in return.
no pressure. truly. most of this will always be free. because at its core, this space is just me trying to make sense of the world by writing into it — and hoping someone out there feels a little less alone because of it.
but if you’ve ever read something here and thought “she should spiral for a living”… then know this: your presence alone brings that dream a little closer to reality. and that’s no small thing.
with unreasonable amount of affection,
anshika ✨
"she’s mocking the men who want her pretty and pliable. mocking the women who think femininity is weakness."
I sometimes sit at a dining table making deadpan jokes. I often feel like the existence of my vagina means it flies over mens' heads. A simple crack at the classic "Why can't we print more money?" turns into a lecture about the economy, when all I wanted was a giggle.
Or they laugh at my "stupidity" and repeat it, thinking they discovered the joke. Trust me, I've thought about what I said. I just wish you would too.
10/10 would satire again