5QQ: Andy Borowitz

Rachel SklarJan 6th, 2010, 8:29 am

Andy Borowitz is hilarious. He has always been, of course, with his writing in the NYT and the New Yorker and at his award-winning humor site, The Borowitz Report, and at HuffPo (where he seems to write more than at the Borowitz Report now) — but now I get him in front of my face every day, cracking me up via his hi-larious Twitter feed. Anyone who reads me has seen me RT him, usually with a big “HA” as commentary, and it’s because of stuff like this: “A book claims Warren Beatty had sex w/13,000 women, making him the #2 ranked golfer in the world” and “Airlines to Charge Passengers $50 for First Bomb” and “Mel Gibson looks really angry in his new movie. What did the Jews do to him this time?” Borowitz has made his name with pithy, zingy fake headlines and news strories just like that, and he only gets sharper (here’s more: “Mistresses of Tiger Woods March on Washington” with this pretend-quote from a pretend 22-year-old “thong publicist”: “We are sick and tired of being told to take our names off our voicemail greetings,” she said. “We have demands and they must be met. Quickly. Huge”). He’s a career humorist who has used the web smartly from day one, but he’s also an extremely astute media and political observer whose one-liners are less tossed-off throwaways than succinct little nuggets of hilarious truth (“US Transfers Airport Security From TSA to TMZ”) with the deft phrasing and timing that turns punchlines you thought you knew into something that makes you almost spit up your diet coke (“Cameron to Follow Up Avatar With Emoticon“). He really is one of my favorites, which is why I am so delighted that he agreed to answer our questions for the very first New Yecade installment of 5QQ – Five Quick Questions.

1. How do you get your first news of the day?
I go to Twitter. The only downside of this approach is that most of the news I get is about Justin Bieber.

2. New Yecade Edition:

(i)What do you miss from 2000? If you could go back a decade, what would you stop from changing or becoming extinct?
I miss day trading. It was a much more efficient way of losing the country’s money than, say, Iraq and Afghanistan have been. I am very sorry about the extinction of Modern Bride. I can’t help feeling that it could have been saved if Conde Nast had merged it with Wired and formed Wired Bride.

(ii) What did you call this last decade?
The Farmville Years

(iv) Who will be the Next Decade’s New Oprah?
Oprah

(v) Blow Up or Fade Away in the 2010s: (1) Levi Johnston (2) Snooki (3) Susan Boyle
Levi Johnston will get his own TV show – if not on a network, then on NBC. Susan Boyle will keep getting made over until she is indistinguishable from Lady Gaga. If Snooki is to survive she will have to learn how to duck.

3. What’s the biggest story the media missed in 2009?
There was that one day, in October I think, where Tiger Woods didn’t fuck anyone.

4. Obligatory Twitter Question: Describe yourself in 140 characters or less (hash tag optional)
Ever since I started tweeting I’ve noticed that my attention span has gotten shor

5. Are you nervous or excited about the future of journalism and media?
Very excited about the future of journalism and media. Also, the cotton gin.

Bonus question: Who is it more fun to write fake headlines about, Rod Blagojevich or Sarah Palin?
I don’t really write fake headlines about either, it’s more a process of transcription.