Irony Is Dead. Long Live Irony (On The Web)

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The wildly inventive Modern Humorist www.modernhumorist.com) founded by Harvard Lampoon alums John Aboud and Michael Colton, has a broader satiric scope, which has led some to call it the National Lampoon of the Web. But its richest targets have been pop culture and the media. When US Weekly retracted a claim that Tom Cruise had fallen out with the Church of Scientology, MH fired off "Corrections the Scientologists Made Us Run," including "Tom Cruise does not stand on a phone book whenever he and Nicole Kidman are photographed together. Instead she stands in a hole." It greeted Oprah Winfrey's O magazine with J: the Jerry [Springer] Magazine and has also posted Misfortune, a post-market-crash version of a certain TIME Inc. publication ("Rightsizing your family: Does your household have more mouths than food?"). It has even parodied parodies, spoofing how Budweiser's "Wassup?" ads have been overspoofed with a version that ends, "We're sick of this joke too."

Colton and Aboud plan to broaden their readership by cutting back on media jokes, but such stunts earn MH attention from a vain press--the Misfortune parody was published in FORTUNE too--which is pure gold for a Web start-up. In an exception to the aforementioned Entertaindom rule, MH has scored backing from venture capitalists, who hope its brand can be slapped on books, video games and movies. ("We tell them, 'Think Modern Humorist's Scuba School with Corey Haim,'" cracks Colton.) The money has been used to hire a staff of 10 and add multimedia. MH's "Summer Movie eView" includes audio files like a fake Aerosmith ballad for The Patriot.

Of course, Mad used to do the same thing by publishing lyrics with the tag "Sung to the tune of..." But be honest: Were you aware that Mad still exists? Satire in print may have its problems--Spy folded in 1998--but irony online seems safe as long as obsessive jokesters have modems. "Most of America doesn't read," says Aboud. "But they do like glowing pictures."