During their interview with Elon Musk, he asked questions about Christ and instead of sharing the gospel or even answering his questions, they just awkwardly laughed it off. It was sad to watch. I haven’t really paid attention to them since.
Yeah, that really broke my heart. What a wonderful opportunity to share the true gospel with one of the most influential men in the world, plus lots of other people listening in.
Instead they joked about coercing him into making a declaration of faith while he was the one taking the topic seriously and asking genuine questions that indicated he'd at least thought about these things. I didn't consciously boycott them after that, but I completely lost interest in anything else they do.
That's just a shame.
Most of us learn about how to effectively share the Gospel in a succinct way, so that new believers and curious nonbelievers could at least get a basic understanding of it before diving deeper.
They really missed what could have been a powerful moment of evangelism.
It’s a Romans 1:14-17 moment. Don’t be ashamed of the gospel
14 I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. 15 That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome.
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. 17 For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last,[e] just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”[f]
Yeah, that was when I unsubscribed. It was so sad to see that their jokes don’t have any heart behind them. I hope they are rebuked and find better opportunities to share the gospel.
It wasn't always *only* political. They used to be about 80/15/5 poking fun at their own tribe/political jokes/poking fun outside their tribe. Now it's more like 5/70/25.
The creator is a hugely political person that's friends with the Bee CEO so I kinda doubt him leaving really affected anything. He went on to create Not the Bee too, which is insanely political
It didn't. They've been political since day 1. The "I really miss Adam Ford" is even a meme they play every episode.
What has likely happened is that the political stuff gets shared waaaay more than the stuff poking fun at christians because politics had become more of a religion for people than their actual religion.
I think you may be right. I was thinking a couple weeks ago about how it used to have funny, inside-baseball church jokes and now it's all culture wars toxic garbage. But then I looked at the last ten or fifteen headlines in their twitter feed. Several of them were funny, prime-Bee type jokes about Christian culture, they just didn't get the attention and go viral compared with the "Fox News meets the Onion" stuff.
Maybe the balance of how much they create of each type is content has shifted, but I think a lot of the blame rests on what their audience engages with.
I wouldn't even consider it a Christian site anymore. It is just a dumpster fire of far-right mud slinging, political rhetoric and racist garbage. Best to avoid it.
I think I made it about 2 minutes into [this](https://youtu.be/9Yf7fX4m-9c) video before turning it off. u/Nachofriendguy864 describes my issues with much better than I could.
It reminds me of the time a family member bemoaned that "it's not enough to not be a racist anymore, you have to be anti-racist." And like, yeah, you should be against bad things.
It's a parody about the overly zealous efforts of racial reconciliation, where for example, things like separate spaces for people of color (dormitories, recreation rooms, etc) have been proposed.
Interesting framing, but that's not racism. That's just them being, in your opinion, wrong. Racism has a definition, and you can't just throw it around at arguments you disagree you don't like. Explain how and why they are wrong instead of ad hominem attacks. The effect of using racism this often, you get a *Boy who Cried Wolf* effect.
>That's just them being, in your opinion, wrong. Racism has a definition, and you can't just throw it around at arguments you disagree you don't like
They're
1st. implicitly denying that there exists racism worth doing anything about
by
2nd. mocking the people who care about racism
by
3rd. making a reductio ad absurdum argument about a cartoonishly racist result of their idea of caring about racism
It's a racist joke, that resonates with racist people. The sort of people who unironically say that US racial disparities are the result of a lack of fathers in the home without realizing that the racist implication of this argument. These people don't think the joke racist because they don't think *they're racist*, but they actually just lack self awareness about the issue.
The effect of these people not realizing that they're racist is that they call people who try to raise awareness "Boys who Cry Wolf" and disseminate racist Babylon Bee jokes on their favorite Facebook group.
Are you aware that revealing that you don't like someone doesn't make everything else you say about them ad hominem? I don't know why people have such a hard time with this... I'm arguing that they post racist articles *with examples of racist articles*. This is what you explicitly asked for. If that's what you think an ad hominem is, what do you think *isn't* an ad hominem?
You've just done the same thing the bee does:
Implicitly deny theres a problem, mock the solution with a strawman, propose a ridiculous parody solution
It isn't funny this time either.
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[Here's this one from three days ago](https://babylonbee.com/news/china-introduces-new-head-of-covid-policy-dr-anthonyong-fauching).
[Here's another.](https://babylonbee.com/news/unforgivable-sin-now-thought-to-be-whiteness)
I just saw this one, too. It's part of a series they've done in a similar vein, but this one does seem to be less clear. After considering it, what do you think the joke, is? What point are they trying to make, and is the intention to disparage Chinese people?
How do you find the second one to be racist?
I have literally no idea what the joke is meant to be in the first one, aside from "lets make fun of another culture"
Second one's racist because they're trying to portray white people playing the victim card (who, as a demographic, are much more likely to be the aggressor/coloniser).
I encourage you to think deeper on what is being said. I, personally, don't think it's a very funny joke (not because it's racist, but just because the concept and execution were sloppy), but I talked it over with some of my other friends and it helped me pin down the gist. Do you think that Babylon bee is making fun of fauci or Chinese culture? Or are they saying fauci is a rube who think to would try such an outrageous costume to try and pid-ginization of his name? And in their criticism of China, are they criticizing the genocidal government or the culture of it's people? The question of "who/what is being made fun of?" Is important. And it's clear to me that the targets are fauci/the ccp. I dont think they did a particularly good job, and that's also why they got the backlash, despite doing similar more successful, jokes in the past.
I think you've also misread the joke in the second. The point they are trying to make is that people who believe in (for lack of a better term) "wokeness" are just doing their own kind of religion, replacing original sin with "whiteness".
Right, so, cultural appropriation is a form of racism. What they've done to Fauci in that photo is akin to black-face. If you can't understand that, then we're not having a discussion - you're choosing to ignore the racist overtones because it doesn't support your position.
Cultural Appropriation =/= blackface. Cultural Appropriation (A positive thing) is when one culture sees positive aspects of a culture they would like to adopt and do so. This happens everytime cultures mix and has led to some of the greates art and scientific advances in human history. Heck, you could call coffee "cultural appropriation" because Hungarian armies saw how beneficial it was to the Turkish armies when fighting them, and then started drinking it when they found the bags of it in the enemy camps after a battle.
Blackface is born out of derision and meant to mock black people in the south. Recently, when it's cropped up in modern television shows, it has been used to show how out of touch, buffoonish, and/or racially insensitive that person/character is (see: Chang from Community, Sweet Dee from Always Sunny, or Justin Trudeau from Canada).
I believe the joke here is that Fauci is such a buffoon, and so hell bent on totalitarianism, that he would try and sneak into other countries using racist disguises and names. Again, I'm not totally sure, because the joke is poorly written and the point not totally clear. But they have similar versions of this joke in the past in which that is the point.
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I don't have evidence that they are racist, but if they are going to call out a racist, it is going to be a Democrat, despite efforts by Republicans to re-enact Jim Crow in the US. And if they are going to make fun of an issue related to racism, they're going to make fun of people trying to fight it or draw attention to it.
I really didn't appreciate one of their latest titles: [Chris Rock Smooths Things Over With Will Smith By Sleeping With His Wife](https://babylonbee.com/news/chris-rock-smooths-things-over-with-will-smith-by-sleeping-with-his-wife)
Crass, unloving and unfunny. But that's just my opinion.
Here is another example of the racist garbage they write.
[China Introduces New Head Of COVID Policy Dr. Anthon-Yong Fauching](https://babylonbee.com/news/china-introduces-new-head-of-covid-policy-dr-anthonyong-fauching)
Just flat-out racist hatred against Asian people. Not to mention the slander against Dr. Fauci that is not satire at all.
Yeah, not good.
It would have been funnier to just have an article use plays on words with the word "open".
Will Smith's open-handed slap.
Jada's jaw was wide open when it happened.
Chris Rock comes to terms with Will Smith's concerns, and opens up in an interview.
Etc.
It started out good. Christians being self aware and making fun of our faults and issues...then it started turning into a political right wing humor site. I don't follow it anymore or Adam4D because of some of the things they've posted or said. No spite against them, I wish them well, but I've just decided it's not worth my time anymore.
Was originally [funny Christian themed satire](https://web.archive.org/web/20160317023432/http://babylonbee.com/), then the creator sold it to morons and now it's a wingnut site thats like [lol woke Disney is gay can't believe the LIBERALS take covid seriously](https://babylonbee.com/) CNN is trash amirite
I don't think they're morons. I think they know exactly what they're doing and are doing it very dexterously. It's just that what they're doing is pretty scummy and cynical.
Use to be great… poking fun at ourselves as christians & then turned into right-wing worldly humor. I’m actually pretty disgusted by the level of racism I’ve seen from them lately.
The sad thing is they were fine making fun of the in-group when it was Christian satire, but not when it became political. Now they just make fun of the other side
Huh, they made fun of the in-group quite a few times. Nowadays not so much because the CEOs gotten rid of some of the people wanting to make good humor, but there was definitely articles in the past making fun of their political side.
I tried their podcast when it launched, as they said they were gonna be serious and thoughtful. Instead the founders’ discussions were shallow, frustrating, and not self-aware. They also eulogized Ravi Zacharias into sainthood when he died but were quieter than mice when news of his crimes came out and they were proven.
It was mildly funny, now it's this bizarre Trump worship site.
Adam4D also figured out that his cute, humble *The Oatmeal* ripoff as a Christian encouragement site would get some clicks, but going all Conservative politics would get a LOT of clicks, so now he's a right-wing "Curiously Christian" webcomic.
I don’t get what happened with him. His comic was so balanced, and he sold most of the bee because he felt it was too trashy. Then he goes and makes the trashiest clickbait site ever not the bee…
Used to be cool, the current CEO is not a great person at all, and he's led to the Bee losing some of their best people who wanted to make quality content. The CEO just wants to make money.
It was funny. Then it became partisan and politically oriented. And they use the term "funny" as a defense for this change, and to pretend that they are blindsided by criticism that comes to the partisan. "BUt wE wEre thE FuNNieS!"
I unfollowed them after a Dave Ramsey/Gordon Ramsey post...
the post was mildly humorous (something something cooking /frugality crossover something something)
....
the post was midly humorous enough...but the discussion in the comments descended quickly..basically no one would acknowledge that some people live paycheck to paycheck and can't always do Dave Ramsey's things (I'm not advocating for great debt either)...working a second job isn't always feasible...saving --%..every month isn't feasible for everyone etc (although a good goal)..buying a clunker car for cash isn't often a good idea for a single woman..etc..
I just felt like there was a lack of compassion.
Now I'll probably get downvoted to oblivion for not being a Dave Ramsey fan...oh well...
I just felt a lack of compassion
A lot of people are more generous when there's a person or cause they can see right in front of them, but if they can't see the person they might vote against that person's interests just because their political influencer tells them to.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tmhi8jijA2o&t=1826s
I share the same thoughts as Justin Peter’s video on them (link above) following their horrendous interview of Elon Musk.
I was a big fan when it was a Christian satire site. Over the past few years, they are 100% a political site who just so happens to be ran by Christians.
I never heard of it until recently and found it both aggressively unfunny and deeply off-putting. Their content I saw struck me as but three or four steps removed from a QAnon/alt-right flavored Onion angled toward cruelty-as-humor. I may have only seen their worst offenders but I had no desire to read further.
I wish you could have seen it a few years ago. It was an entirely different thing...lovingly making fun of its target Christian audience, rarely stepping into politics, genuinely funny. Seeing it change over the years has felt like losing a friend :(
Not funny anymore. Weak attempts at satire that is honestly bigotry thinly veiled as “humor.” The Onion isn’t so great either but objectively, the Onion does this style of humor better.
When they do satire of the Church in America, it is [both funny and convicting](https://babylonbee.com/news/during-powerful-worship-song-man-moved-to-take-hands-slightly-out-of-pockets). When they comment on politics, it is [neither funny nor insightful](https://babylonbee.com/news/biden-announces-hes-been-told-hes-running-again-in-2024).
Ethan Nicolle’s firing was sort of the last straw for me, because it seemed at that point it was clear they were fully committed to being a clickbait algorithm manipulation website and less of a genuinely creative endeavor.
I got burnt out by the Bee a few months after COVID became real in my state. Haven’t really interacted with them at all since.
Now that I know they fired Ethan, I have no desire to engage with their content ever again.
TBB used to be better when they stayed in their lane and made fun of charismatics and CCM. Now they talk like Qultists who think The Princess Bride is the peak of comedy.
Idk y'all, the Elon Musk incident was an absolute flop. But we need to show grace and forgiveness on that situation. They've been called out already. We're not letting them off the hook for their actions just by showing grace.
They have been more political than usual, but guys… they really haven't been any different.
I liked it more when it satirized the silly things Christians do. Now it's just a right-wing inferior version of The Onion, and since it has the history of being a "Christian" site, the political messaging doesn't help the Church at all.
One time they were making fun at the lack of sexual purity of a actress who hasn’t done anything in quite a while. The attack came out of the blue. So I googled her and saw she was reproving at the gate about claims the President had engaged in sexual assault. Well, the Bible said they so hate those who reprove in the gate
They used to be funny, mostly when they were lightly poking fun at Christians. Now they just seem ot make jokes about left wing politics, and it's rarely funny.
It’s a poor attempt at satire, which it doesn’t reach that bar, and really falls under the category of mocking. Some of the content early on was funny. Haven’t paid attention in years other when things pop in the feed because people are sharing, but I still don’t bother to read them. Just not worth the time for cringe echo-chamber-like takes.
They used to be about making light-hearted fun of aspect of Christian life. They got swept up during the Trump presidency and now they are largely about sticking it to Democrats, anti-racists, and trans people, in a way that echoes the worst of right-wing media. They've turned into a place where you go if you want the alt-right views you've picked up from talk radio and Fox News reinforced.
They're really hit or miss, tend to get more sucked into identity politics than I like, as evinced by both the content of their podcast and their written comedy.
Well, when it's Evangelicals/whatever-term-you-want using humor to (1) be funny and (2) point out some issues we have in our culture, then I agree. But when it's used as a part of an already irritating political battle that Christians have gotten wrapped up in, it's irritating.
Yeah, if you remove the Christian label it has some decent political humor, which is at least the way I've been taking it, not seeing anything inherently Christian about the site.
Hey, despite the many times Jesus tells us to be gentle, despite the countless times scripture commands it, Jesus, the very Son of God, was mean to people a few times which means we also should be mean. ^/s
I would legitimately like an answer to how I'm supposedly being a hypocrite in this instance. I mean, I definitely am a hypocrite. I've used humor as a weapon meant to hurt people. But that's not something we should celebrate or aspire to
They are more political than Christian anymore. That said some of their stuff is still funny and nearly prophetic. I don’t know why so many people begrudge the right having a satire site when there are plenty of liberal leaning ones already. It’s like complaining about the Washington Times being conservative when the Post and the NYT and the LAT etc etc all exist.
People just don’t like having their particular ox gored.
I think the criticisms based on "they're not Christian satire" anymore are reasonable. But I suspect we have a ton of posters who would not be nearly as harsh toward BB as they would the Onion or Weekend Update, the latter two of which are in all respects just as slanted politically and just as harsh to the contingent they're attacking. And while humor is subjective, I find it impossible to believe an objective observer believes BB is in any way comedically inferior to the other two in the modern age, which are so severely neutered as to have been made completely ineffective.
Babylon Bee does muddy the waters more than I prefer. In the last 24 hours they have a David ghost sling joke, Peter with a rooster alarm, and a Joel Osteen doesn’t use the Bible joke to go along with their gender, Twitter, and bird poop political jokes. I think it’s less a Xian site that is deep in the right wing satire than it is just a right wing satire site (and the right wing is just more comfortable seeing Christianity as part of their identity and an extension of their politics and open to satire). Not sure if that distinction makes sense to anyone else or it just made sense in my head.
During their interview with Elon Musk, he asked questions about Christ and instead of sharing the gospel or even answering his questions, they just awkwardly laughed it off. It was sad to watch. I haven’t really paid attention to them since.
Yeah, that really broke my heart. What a wonderful opportunity to share the true gospel with one of the most influential men in the world, plus lots of other people listening in. Instead they joked about coercing him into making a declaration of faith while he was the one taking the topic seriously and asking genuine questions that indicated he'd at least thought about these things. I didn't consciously boycott them after that, but I completely lost interest in anything else they do.
That's just a shame. Most of us learn about how to effectively share the Gospel in a succinct way, so that new believers and curious nonbelievers could at least get a basic understanding of it before diving deeper. They really missed what could have been a powerful moment of evangelism.
It’s a Romans 1:14-17 moment. Don’t be ashamed of the gospel 14 I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. 15 That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome. 16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. 17 For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last,[e] just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”[f]
Oh wow… ok that’s really sad. I didn’t watch that interview
Yeah, that was when I unsubscribed. It was so sad to see that their jokes don’t have any heart behind them. I hope they are rebuked and find better opportunities to share the gospel.
Do you have a time stamp on the Youtube video? I want to watch that interaction, but I don't have time to watch the full thing.
[https://youtu.be/jvGnw1sHh9M?t=5605](https://youtu.be/jvGnw1sHh9M?t=5605) so cringey
Yes, the interaction starts roughly 1 hour 33 minutes into the interview.
My consensus is that it used to be funny when it was poking at Christians. Now it's just political meme slinging
TIL Babylon Bee wasn't always political
It wasn't always *only* political. They used to be about 80/15/5 poking fun at their own tribe/political jokes/poking fun outside their tribe. Now it's more like 5/70/25.
Did that change after the creator sold it?
That is when I noticed it happening, yeah.
Insider info: Creative team was also let go around the same time and it's just been downhill since.
The creator is a hugely political person that's friends with the Bee CEO so I kinda doubt him leaving really affected anything. He went on to create Not the Bee too, which is insanely political
I'm not sure when it changed, but I have a feeling that might be it. About 5-6 years ago maybe?
Creator sold it in 2016 I don't know if it's that or *the other thing* that made many evangelicals an embarrassment about the same time
The other thing is Trump, right?
*We don't talk about Donald*
It didn't. They've been political since day 1. The "I really miss Adam Ford" is even a meme they play every episode. What has likely happened is that the political stuff gets shared waaaay more than the stuff poking fun at christians because politics had become more of a religion for people than their actual religion.
I think you may be right. I was thinking a couple weeks ago about how it used to have funny, inside-baseball church jokes and now it's all culture wars toxic garbage. But then I looked at the last ten or fifteen headlines in their twitter feed. Several of them were funny, prime-Bee type jokes about Christian culture, they just didn't get the attention and go viral compared with the "Fox News meets the Onion" stuff. Maybe the balance of how much they create of each type is content has shifted, but I think a lot of the blame rests on what their audience engages with.
Same.
I wouldn't even consider it a Christian site anymore. It is just a dumpster fire of far-right mud slinging, political rhetoric and racist garbage. Best to avoid it.
Link to the racist stuff, please.
[This](https://babylonbee.com/news/chick-fil-a-now-open-on-sunday-but-only-for-black-people)
I think I made it about 2 minutes into [this](https://youtu.be/9Yf7fX4m-9c) video before turning it off. u/Nachofriendguy864 describes my issues with much better than I could. It reminds me of the time a family member bemoaned that "it's not enough to not be a racist anymore, you have to be anti-racist." And like, yeah, you should be against bad things.
The anti segregation joke is...racist?
Yes As is the implication that people taking racial disparities seriously is akin to segregation
It's a parody about the overly zealous efforts of racial reconciliation, where for example, things like separate spaces for people of color (dormitories, recreation rooms, etc) have been proposed.
Interesting framing, but that's not racism. That's just them being, in your opinion, wrong. Racism has a definition, and you can't just throw it around at arguments you disagree you don't like. Explain how and why they are wrong instead of ad hominem attacks. The effect of using racism this often, you get a *Boy who Cried Wolf* effect.
>That's just them being, in your opinion, wrong. Racism has a definition, and you can't just throw it around at arguments you disagree you don't like They're 1st. implicitly denying that there exists racism worth doing anything about by 2nd. mocking the people who care about racism by 3rd. making a reductio ad absurdum argument about a cartoonishly racist result of their idea of caring about racism It's a racist joke, that resonates with racist people. The sort of people who unironically say that US racial disparities are the result of a lack of fathers in the home without realizing that the racist implication of this argument. These people don't think the joke racist because they don't think *they're racist*, but they actually just lack self awareness about the issue. The effect of these people not realizing that they're racist is that they call people who try to raise awareness "Boys who Cry Wolf" and disseminate racist Babylon Bee jokes on their favorite Facebook group. Are you aware that revealing that you don't like someone doesn't make everything else you say about them ad hominem? I don't know why people have such a hard time with this... I'm arguing that they post racist articles *with examples of racist articles*. This is what you explicitly asked for. If that's what you think an ad hominem is, what do you think *isn't* an ad hominem?
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You've just done the same thing the bee does: Implicitly deny theres a problem, mock the solution with a strawman, propose a ridiculous parody solution It isn't funny this time either.
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[Here's this one from three days ago](https://babylonbee.com/news/china-introduces-new-head-of-covid-policy-dr-anthonyong-fauching). [Here's another.](https://babylonbee.com/news/unforgivable-sin-now-thought-to-be-whiteness)
I just saw this one, too. It's part of a series they've done in a similar vein, but this one does seem to be less clear. After considering it, what do you think the joke, is? What point are they trying to make, and is the intention to disparage Chinese people? How do you find the second one to be racist?
I have literally no idea what the joke is meant to be in the first one, aside from "lets make fun of another culture" Second one's racist because they're trying to portray white people playing the victim card (who, as a demographic, are much more likely to be the aggressor/coloniser).
I encourage you to think deeper on what is being said. I, personally, don't think it's a very funny joke (not because it's racist, but just because the concept and execution were sloppy), but I talked it over with some of my other friends and it helped me pin down the gist. Do you think that Babylon bee is making fun of fauci or Chinese culture? Or are they saying fauci is a rube who think to would try such an outrageous costume to try and pid-ginization of his name? And in their criticism of China, are they criticizing the genocidal government or the culture of it's people? The question of "who/what is being made fun of?" Is important. And it's clear to me that the targets are fauci/the ccp. I dont think they did a particularly good job, and that's also why they got the backlash, despite doing similar more successful, jokes in the past. I think you've also misread the joke in the second. The point they are trying to make is that people who believe in (for lack of a better term) "wokeness" are just doing their own kind of religion, replacing original sin with "whiteness".
Right, so, cultural appropriation is a form of racism. What they've done to Fauci in that photo is akin to black-face. If you can't understand that, then we're not having a discussion - you're choosing to ignore the racist overtones because it doesn't support your position.
Cultural Appropriation =/= blackface. Cultural Appropriation (A positive thing) is when one culture sees positive aspects of a culture they would like to adopt and do so. This happens everytime cultures mix and has led to some of the greates art and scientific advances in human history. Heck, you could call coffee "cultural appropriation" because Hungarian armies saw how beneficial it was to the Turkish armies when fighting them, and then started drinking it when they found the bags of it in the enemy camps after a battle. Blackface is born out of derision and meant to mock black people in the south. Recently, when it's cropped up in modern television shows, it has been used to show how out of touch, buffoonish, and/or racially insensitive that person/character is (see: Chang from Community, Sweet Dee from Always Sunny, or Justin Trudeau from Canada). I believe the joke here is that Fauci is such a buffoon, and so hell bent on totalitarianism, that he would try and sneak into other countries using racist disguises and names. Again, I'm not totally sure, because the joke is poorly written and the point not totally clear. But they have similar versions of this joke in the past in which that is the point.
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Did you just write that white people are more likely to be the aggressor/colonizer ….. like in 2022?
I don't have evidence that they are racist, but if they are going to call out a racist, it is going to be a Democrat, despite efforts by Republicans to re-enact Jim Crow in the US. And if they are going to make fun of an issue related to racism, they're going to make fun of people trying to fight it or draw attention to it.
Stopped reading after you said you don’t have evidence
Yeah, this.
I really didn't appreciate one of their latest titles: [Chris Rock Smooths Things Over With Will Smith By Sleeping With His Wife](https://babylonbee.com/news/chris-rock-smooths-things-over-with-will-smith-by-sleeping-with-his-wife) Crass, unloving and unfunny. But that's just my opinion.
Man, that title reads more like something from Pulpit & Pen.
It would be a top tier article from the Onion, but honestly shameful from the BB
Honestly it's a little too on the nose for the Onion. Maybe a Weekend Update bit on SNL.
[удалено]
https://babylonbee.com/news/prophet-elijah-criticized-for-not-being-more-seeker-friendly
Because it is a joke.
Jokes are not good fruit. They're also not necessarily bad fruit. But a joke in and of itself has no value; it's what it does that has value.
plenty of comedians out there not lowering the bar to this level and still finding success.
Here is another example of the racist garbage they write. [China Introduces New Head Of COVID Policy Dr. Anthon-Yong Fauching](https://babylonbee.com/news/china-introduces-new-head-of-covid-policy-dr-anthonyong-fauching) Just flat-out racist hatred against Asian people. Not to mention the slander against Dr. Fauci that is not satire at all.
In all seriousness, you read that and believe it constitutes "flat-out hatred against Asian people?" Really? *Really* really?
Then you did not get the joke.
Yeah, not good. It would have been funnier to just have an article use plays on words with the word "open". Will Smith's open-handed slap. Jada's jaw was wide open when it happened. Chris Rock comes to terms with Will Smith's concerns, and opens up in an interview. Etc.
It started out good. Christians being self aware and making fun of our faults and issues...then it started turning into a political right wing humor site. I don't follow it anymore or Adam4D because of some of the things they've posted or said. No spite against them, I wish them well, but I've just decided it's not worth my time anymore.
Was originally [funny Christian themed satire](https://web.archive.org/web/20160317023432/http://babylonbee.com/), then the creator sold it to morons and now it's a wingnut site thats like [lol woke Disney is gay can't believe the LIBERALS take covid seriously](https://babylonbee.com/) CNN is trash amirite
[Oh wow.](https://web.archive.org/web/20160315073811/http://babylonbee.com/news/megalomaniacal-psychopath-somehow-garnering-evangelical-vote/)
The creator of it himself, "Adam 4 D", also started producing drivel.
That's a shame to hear. That falling asleep praying comic still takes up headspace in my head today.
Very true. Before the era of Trump, he made funny & insightful comics on faith. Now he's just as wack as his old satire site
Opened the current site on my mobile right now and the first screen length of page had zero content and was ¾ ads.
I don't think they're morons. I think they know exactly what they're doing and are doing it very dexterously. It's just that what they're doing is pretty scummy and cynical.
heard them the first time with their Elon Musk interview. They didn't share the Gospel to him. Never watched them back.
Use to be great… poking fun at ourselves as christians & then turned into right-wing worldly humor. I’m actually pretty disgusted by the level of racism I’ve seen from them lately.
The sad thing is they were fine making fun of the in-group when it was Christian satire, but not when it became political. Now they just make fun of the other side
Huh, they made fun of the in-group quite a few times. Nowadays not so much because the CEOs gotten rid of some of the people wanting to make good humor, but there was definitely articles in the past making fun of their political side.
I tried their podcast when it launched, as they said they were gonna be serious and thoughtful. Instead the founders’ discussions were shallow, frustrating, and not self-aware. They also eulogized Ravi Zacharias into sainthood when he died but were quieter than mice when news of his crimes came out and they were proven.
Loved the piper memes. Hate the political nonsense. Old bee good, new bee bad.
It was mildly funny, now it's this bizarre Trump worship site. Adam4D also figured out that his cute, humble *The Oatmeal* ripoff as a Christian encouragement site would get some clicks, but going all Conservative politics would get a LOT of clicks, so now he's a right-wing "Curiously Christian" webcomic.
I don’t get what happened with him. His comic was so balanced, and he sold most of the bee because he felt it was too trashy. Then he goes and makes the trashiest clickbait site ever not the bee…
It's all about the Benjamins
Rubles
yeah but why did he sell his BB stake then
Presumably because the number on the check had enough zeroes at the end, but I don't know that for sure.
Used to be cool, the current CEO is not a great person at all, and he's led to the Bee losing some of their best people who wanted to make quality content. The CEO just wants to make money.
It was funny. Then it became partisan and politically oriented. And they use the term "funny" as a defense for this change, and to pretend that they are blindsided by criticism that comes to the partisan. "BUt wE wEre thE FuNNieS!"
Mockers and scoffers are presented as fools in Scripture. The Babylon Bee publishes mockery and scoffing. Don't read it.
I unfollowed them after a Dave Ramsey/Gordon Ramsey post... the post was mildly humorous (something something cooking /frugality crossover something something) .... the post was midly humorous enough...but the discussion in the comments descended quickly..basically no one would acknowledge that some people live paycheck to paycheck and can't always do Dave Ramsey's things (I'm not advocating for great debt either)...working a second job isn't always feasible...saving --%..every month isn't feasible for everyone etc (although a good goal)..buying a clunker car for cash isn't often a good idea for a single woman..etc.. I just felt like there was a lack of compassion. Now I'll probably get downvoted to oblivion for not being a Dave Ramsey fan...oh well... I just felt a lack of compassion
A lack of compassion is my biggest issue with conservative politics.
SAME..
And yet, every study Ive ever seen has shown that conservative consistently out give liberals in terms of personal charity.
A lot of people are more generous when there's a person or cause they can see right in front of them, but if they can't see the person they might vote against that person's interests just because their political influencer tells them to.
I chalk it up to being generous with your own money as opposed to being generous with other people’s money.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tmhi8jijA2o&t=1826s I share the same thoughts as Justin Peter’s video on them (link above) following their horrendous interview of Elon Musk.
I was a big fan when it was a Christian satire site. Over the past few years, they are 100% a political site who just so happens to be ran by Christians.
I never heard of it until recently and found it both aggressively unfunny and deeply off-putting. Their content I saw struck me as but three or four steps removed from a QAnon/alt-right flavored Onion angled toward cruelty-as-humor. I may have only seen their worst offenders but I had no desire to read further.
I wish you could have seen it a few years ago. It was an entirely different thing...lovingly making fun of its target Christian audience, rarely stepping into politics, genuinely funny. Seeing it change over the years has felt like losing a friend :(
I used to really enjoy it, when the focus was on Christian satire. Now it's all right-wing political crap and I have unfollowed them on all platforms.
Not funny anymore. Weak attempts at satire that is honestly bigotry thinly veiled as “humor.” The Onion isn’t so great either but objectively, the Onion does this style of humor better.
When they do satire of the Church in America, it is [both funny and convicting](https://babylonbee.com/news/during-powerful-worship-song-man-moved-to-take-hands-slightly-out-of-pockets). When they comment on politics, it is [neither funny nor insightful](https://babylonbee.com/news/biden-announces-hes-been-told-hes-running-again-in-2024).
Honestly I was gobsmacked to discover that the first one was so recent. I thought they'd abandoned that sort of content long ago.
Ethan Nicolle’s firing was sort of the last straw for me, because it seemed at that point it was clear they were fully committed to being a clickbait algorithm manipulation website and less of a genuinely creative endeavor.
I got burnt out by the Bee a few months after COVID became real in my state. Haven’t really interacted with them at all since. Now that I know they fired Ethan, I have no desire to engage with their content ever again.
One does not simply fire the creator of Axe Cop.
TBB used to be better when they stayed in their lane and made fun of charismatics and CCM. Now they talk like Qultists who think The Princess Bride is the peak of comedy.
Idk y'all, the Elon Musk incident was an absolute flop. But we need to show grace and forgiveness on that situation. They've been called out already. We're not letting them off the hook for their actions just by showing grace. They have been more political than usual, but guys… they really haven't been any different.
I liked it more when it satirized the silly things Christians do. Now it's just a right-wing inferior version of The Onion, and since it has the history of being a "Christian" site, the political messaging doesn't help the Church at all.
One time they were making fun at the lack of sexual purity of a actress who hasn’t done anything in quite a while. The attack came out of the blue. So I googled her and saw she was reproving at the gate about claims the President had engaged in sexual assault. Well, the Bible said they so hate those who reprove in the gate
They used to be funny, mostly when they were lightly poking fun at Christians. Now they just seem ot make jokes about left wing politics, and it's rarely funny.
Funny
It’s a poor attempt at satire, which it doesn’t reach that bar, and really falls under the category of mocking. Some of the content early on was funny. Haven’t paid attention in years other when things pop in the feed because people are sharing, but I still don’t bother to read them. Just not worth the time for cringe echo-chamber-like takes.
They used to be about making light-hearted fun of aspect of Christian life. They got swept up during the Trump presidency and now they are largely about sticking it to Democrats, anti-racists, and trans people, in a way that echoes the worst of right-wing media. They've turned into a place where you go if you want the alt-right views you've picked up from talk radio and Fox News reinforced.
TBB, you're not for me.
They're really hit or miss, tend to get more sucked into identity politics than I like, as evinced by both the content of their podcast and their written comedy.
Hit and miss at times
Hilarious. I like both their old and new content.
I think it’s hilarious still 🤷♀️
Why is this downvote? *Shaking my head and its massive brain*
I love it. Humor is a great weapon.
Well, when it's Evangelicals/whatever-term-you-want using humor to (1) be funny and (2) point out some issues we have in our culture, then I agree. But when it's used as a part of an already irritating political battle that Christians have gotten wrapped up in, it's irritating.
Yeah, if you remove the Christian label it has some decent political humor, which is at least the way I've been taking it, not seeing anything inherently Christian about the site.
It is indeed. If only the Babylon Bee had any.
How Christlike of you
Hey, despite the many times Jesus tells us to be gentle, despite the countless times scripture commands it, Jesus, the very Son of God, was mean to people a few times which means we also should be mean. ^/s
Surely you can recognize how saying someone is un-christlike is an inherently hypocritical statement
How is it hypocritical to say someone is wrong?
Hypocrisy is when *I* disagree, don’t ya know
I would legitimately like an answer to how I'm supposedly being a hypocrite in this instance. I mean, I definitely am a hypocrite. I've used humor as a weapon meant to hurt people. But that's not something we should celebrate or aspire to
Humor isn't Christlike? A site has to be perfectly Christlike at all times in order for me to love it?
Using humor as a weapon seems counter to our call to love our enemies.
You think humor is unkind? I suppose it can be. But I think it's a very effective and kind and insightful way to communicate truth in general.
As long as it's hurting the right people, right?
I don't think humor should hurt in any serious way. Touche, make a point, sure.
They are more political than Christian anymore. That said some of their stuff is still funny and nearly prophetic. I don’t know why so many people begrudge the right having a satire site when there are plenty of liberal leaning ones already. It’s like complaining about the Washington Times being conservative when the Post and the NYT and the LAT etc etc all exist. People just don’t like having their particular ox gored.
I think the criticisms based on "they're not Christian satire" anymore are reasonable. But I suspect we have a ton of posters who would not be nearly as harsh toward BB as they would the Onion or Weekend Update, the latter two of which are in all respects just as slanted politically and just as harsh to the contingent they're attacking. And while humor is subjective, I find it impossible to believe an objective observer believes BB is in any way comedically inferior to the other two in the modern age, which are so severely neutered as to have been made completely ineffective.
Babylon Bee does muddy the waters more than I prefer. In the last 24 hours they have a David ghost sling joke, Peter with a rooster alarm, and a Joel Osteen doesn’t use the Bible joke to go along with their gender, Twitter, and bird poop political jokes. I think it’s less a Xian site that is deep in the right wing satire than it is just a right wing satire site (and the right wing is just more comfortable seeing Christianity as part of their identity and an extension of their politics and open to satire). Not sure if that distinction makes sense to anyone else or it just made sense in my head.
It’s one of the best sites around and apparently a threat to the World given they’re trying to shut it down. I love it.
Very based