"Onion stops publishing satire," reports Matt Stulberg, a writer for The Squirrel, citing The Onion's editor, Cole Bolton, and his new belief that the Onion has "done more harm than good" ("Onion"). Stulberg goes on to quote several Onion contributors who say that they "honestly didn't think people would believe this crap" and that they "didn't realize the irreparable damage [they] were inadvertently causing to the nation" ("Onion"). It seems that the creators of the famous satirical website have changed their minds about their chosen professions, realizing that satire is actually harmful to public discourse. The Squirrel, in which Matt Stulberg published this breaking news, is, of course, another satirical publication, this time produced by a group of students at Susquehanna University. His February 29 article on Onion's abdication of the Satirical Throne is an argument of the same kind, aimed at Onion's uninformed audience who are often tricked into believing his "stories," generating contempt and misplaced anger. Stulberg asks a simple question: is satire useful in the public sphere? Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Jürgen Habermas theorized that there is a democratized sphere of public discourse in which all ideas are supported by their own merit, not the authority of their owners, and which works to engage the general public in matters of public interest, issues previously left to the oligarchs and aristocrats in power. In the words of Habermas, the public sphere is “the sphere in which private individuals come together to form a public… to engage [public authorities] in a debate about the general rules governing relations in the… sphere of the exchange of goods and of social work” (Habermas, 27). Simply put, the public sphere exists as a place where individuals can communicate their arguments in the broader context of society. It's the space occupied by town hall meetings and online forums, but it's also the space that some say has been hijacked by satirists and political commentators. The fact of the matter is that satire has become a popular form of entertainment. The genre has so permeated the public sphere that it is emulated at the university level. In a sense, The Squirrel takes the place of the family in Habermas's discussion of the public sphere. He argues that the family “provided the training ground for critical public reflection still concerned with itself” (Habermas, 29), meaning generally that as the family read and talked together, they generated new constructs and developed capacities for topics that could later be applied more broadly to the general public. Just as the family can be seen as a kind of proto-public sphere, The Squirrel acts as a kind of proto-satirical sphere, a small study focused on the inner workings of a college campus but turned toward criticism of the larger world. . The emergence of The Squirrel on campus, and its subsequent use in social criticism, is both a reflection of other satirical sites like The Onion and a projection of the public sphere onto campus, discussing ideas in ways similar to both traditional and postmodern. Websites like The Onion and The Squirrel and television programs like The Colbert Report and The Daily Show represent constructs within the general public, constructs that inform and polarize their audiences. The television programs listed here impersonate real news programs in a genre that LisaColletta would call “postmodern satire,” meaning they “denify a difference between what is real and what is appearance… it also embraces incoherence and lack of meaning” (Colletta , 856). In essence, this means that postmodern satirists ironically take on the person or image of the subject they are criticizing. For Jon Stewart and his successor Trever Noah on The Daily Show, that means presenting stories as would a news organization like Fox News, which both have relentlessly aired. For Steven Colbert, this means adopting an obviously biased, usually conservative perspective to parody Fox News' "fair and balanced zone," a "no-fact-zone" instead of Fox's "no-spin-zone." The Onion and The Squirrel, however, represent more of what Colletta would call traditional satire. The irony here lies in “exposing the space between what is appearance” (Colletta, 856), that is, what is true and what should be true. Stulberg's article, then, satirizes The Onion's audience, revealing the irony in the fact that many people fail to understand the site's joke: it should be that the audience of a satirical site understands satire, but it is not always true. This article has a hint of the postmodern, as it has a dimension of meta-satire - satire of satire written in the satirical form of another satirical publication - just as The Onion itself takes on the appearance of a real news site. , writing in the voice and form of a trusted newspaper. Matt Stulberg's satirical attack on The Onion is a direct response to satire's reliance on “the audience's ability to recognize the irony that is at the heart of its humor” (Colletta, 860). Quoting Ben Berkley who says, "I started to worry about our ability to influence people around the time I almost started a riot when I wrote a story about President Obama admitting to timing the state of the union address" ("Onion "), Stulberg admits that satire is often misunderstood, just as Colletta suggests. Yet Colletta would read it, exaggerating, as a catastrophic failure of the genre. Often, The Squirrel "refers" to Onion-like broad themes such as "Tickle-me Vader Toys Recall for Choking Hazard" (Codner) and "Angsty Teenager Compares". Life to Struggles in Syria” (Krinick) but, being a university publication, also skews towards stories closer to home. There are articles titled "Professor Forgets Password, Advisors Plunged into Chaos" and "College Student Preparing for a 'Really Great' Nap Tomorrow" (Miller). Most of the articles on The Squirrel's front page are more like the latter, placing the website primarily in the context of a small liberal arts college focused on issues related to this type of closed society. The articles are short, often just a few paragraphs, and are written in the style of a real news publication. They often cite experts and tend to write sentences with a matter-of-fact, journalistic tone, such as Caroline Miller's statement: "In an exclusive interview with The Squirrel, Susquehanna University sophomore Maggie O'Donnel reports... " (Miller). The Squirrel reads like a reliable news source, effectively mimicking what Colletta would call “the appearance,” for example, of CNN's website, just as The Colbert Report mimics television news. Yet, The Squirrel has the added depth of mimicking The Onion's style, often using it as a guide and sometimes, as in the case of Stulberg's article, directly referencing it. The websites are visually very similar, with more front-page articles with stock photos and outrageous headlines. Their targeted problems are alsosimilar. Compare “Kasich tries to find other states where he is beloved multi-term governor” (Cipolla) with “Mass deportation of a new population: Trump supports” (“Deportation”). But where The Squirrel differs from his big brother is when he occasionally immerses himself in local politics, acting as a direct function of the Susquehanna community or, at the very least, a participant. An October 28, 2015 article, also written by Matt Stulberg, throws The Squirrel into the great mascot debate. Here Stulberg quotes a “university official” who states that the school wishes to continue its traditional values ​​of “white man oppression and domination” (“Mascot”). He goes on to list the proposed replacement mascots: the Gestapo and the Klansmen (“Mascots”). What exactly is being satirized here? Stulberg could be read as echoing the rallying cry of the outraged social activist, satirizing the perceived symbolism of the same crusader mascot as the Christian conqueror most ascribe. On the other hand, it could be that Stulberg is taking the opposite position, suggesting that the Crusader is nothing like these other examples – the Gestapo and the Klansmen – and that the “politically correct” police are actually overreacting. Satire, by its very nature, obscures the issue as much as it overemphasizes it, often favoring the ridiculous over clarity. Lisa Colletta fears that postmodern satire “effectively minimizes social and political engagement, creating a disengaged viewer [or reader] who prefers extraneous irreverence to thoughtful satirical criticism” (Colletta, 859). One might say, then, that Stulberg's references to Nazis and American racists unnecessarily inflate the issue, that what makes him funny is not that he produces poignant criticism but that he manages to make the name change look ridiculous. The satire here, as in many other places, could be read from both sides of the PC argument, giving it mass appeal and undercutting the point. The meaning behind the satire depends on who "gets it", allowing it to change sides accordingly. Satire's ability to be misunderstood and apply to both sides of the argument is both a function and a detriment to its effectiveness in the public sphere. Habermas values ​​a public sphere if it discusses issues of “common interest” (Habermas 36). Certainly satire in general, and The Squirrel in particular, does this. By providing a satirical argument that can be interpreted two ways, Stulberg's article stimulates this discussion without visibly taking sides. While he presents “the facts,” the reader is left to interpret them based on his own set of values. For this reason, Colletta argues that “satire depends on a stable set of values ​​by which to judge behavior” (Colletta 859). To understand Stulberg's intentions, it would be reasonable to suggest that we should be as liberal or conservative as he is to grasp his meaning. Yet, the intentions of the satirist are perhaps the least important part of the work. Rather, if satire wants to successfully promote a debate – physically in a classroom, in a cafeteria, in a cafe, what have you, or in the isolation of the reader's mind – it should have an ambiguous angle so that both sides of the argument could be seen and judged. If, for example, the Great Mascot Debate were to be revived with Stulberg's article as the focal point, then his expressed opinion would lend weight to one side of the issue. Yet Habermas values ​​an institution that “preserves a type of social relationship that…completely ignores status” so that “the argument can assert itself against social hierarchy” (Habermas 36). Therefore, the lightness of the opinion of.