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"All satire is blind to the forces liberated by decay. Which is why total decay has absorbed the forces of satire." — Theodor Adorno
 Dear Andrea,
We understand why you found it irresistibly tempting to lampoon poor Lindsay Lohan's rambling, cokey missive in your column today. But in doing so, you learned something that we've known for a while: some things are so over the top, so inherently comedic, that they defy the satirist to make anything more of them than they already are. Don't get us wrong: we're not saying that we never make the mistake you made. We make it all the time! But when we do, we employ a couple of tactics that keep our posts from coming off as (quite) as hamhanded and dashed-off as your column. Here's an example of where you went wrong:

You are an inspration to younger generations and generations older than you. Which we all know and can obviously see. People are just mean. Or maybe the drugs are finally kicking in! About freaking time. Here is my point Lins, I want to grow up to be just like you and star in Disny movies and play guitar and go to Alcoholics Anymous and forget to eat for many days and weeks and puke and stuff.

Sloppy stuff, Andrea. After the jump, Andrea, we share our experience and wisdom with you.

1) When making fun of someone who's incoherent, you don't need to out-incoherence them. What's up with the "Or maybe the drugs are finally kicking in!" transition? The goal here, Andrea, is not to make Lindsay look like she's a better writer than you are.

2)We generally find that just cutting and pasting and rearranging, changing pronouns where necessary, is the best tactic. The less of your original prose you end up including, the funnier the end result will probably be. So instead of insincerely expressing a desire to be like Linds and "forget to eat for many days and weeks and puke and stuff," you could have just been, like, "Its your life. You want to live it. People cannot lie and think that it is okay to continue on having done so. Simply because they will do it again to someone else, and that is not alright with you. You have had many ups and downs, as do we all."

3) Be stupid in the way your target is stupid. Lindsay's email isn't ridiculous because she misspelled words like "opinion" and "coolest" and "smartest" and "beautiful." It's ridiculous because she misspelled words like "adequate," and also got confused about whether or not she is the most important person who has ever lived. Yes, Lindsay is a spelling-challenged cokehead, but the most striking thing about her email wasn't that it revealed her to be a spelling-challenged cokehead. Everyone already knew that. The striking thing about her email was that it revealed her to be an insane megalomaniac who thinks that Al Gore is prepared to drop everything and help her rehabilitate her image.

A good satirist knows where to aim her barbs. A bad satirist fires rounds willy-nilly, ocassionally striking the target by chance. Right now, you're the latter, Andrea, but we have faith that by following our expert guidance, you could become the former. But no matter what, it's important to remember to stay adequite.

Your Entertainer,

Gawker

Earlier: Lindsay Lohan's Whole Entire Crazy Spam

I Adore A Gal Without Spellcheck or Panties [NYP]