making fun of our world in your book.

[shamguy4]

This is somewhat me ranting, but its relevant to writing.
So I sometimes find myself making fun of our world in my book. Usually things I dislike or find stupid.
Today I made fun of the media.

I am from America and I cannot stand how people idolize celebrities they do not even know in real life. When I listen to the radio its annoying when music is interrupted for some crap like:
'Celebrity x just tweeted that she farted!' (ok I am exaggerating but you get the point...)
or
'Celebrity x broke up with y and now shes back with z...'
Shutup and play the damn music!

It nauseated me when I was taking an art class in college and we were talking about artists and a girl says:
"it's so funny how you guys are talking about these artists the way we talk about real artists!"

Apparently Davinci is not real. Only actors are.

Now that I have finished my rant. What real world things do you make fun of in your book?

 

[Jake Reynolds]

Organised religion trying to dominate freedom of thought, for the most part.

Otherwise, I tend to go halfway between meta and fourth wall a lot, with things like:

'Or perhaps I could simply take his fortune and disappear, leaving all of this behind.' She balled up her fists. 'It's nothing more than fantasy, all of it!'

 

[Drakai]

I tend not to write about things that I am frustrated with. It just makes me all the more angry. I just let out my anger by swearing to myself or punching, kicking the walls.

 

[Tecdavid]

Jabs at the real world aren't that rare in fantasy, are they? Because the story's world is often a fictional one, the writer can employ different rules and norms inside it, while having characters make mockery of norms and rules that are more akin to our own. Or, the story's world can be like our own, and something that bothers the writer can be brought up for the characters to debate.
Discworld does this. In 'The Light Fantastic', a problem occurs that gets the populace scapegoating magicians, despite them having no real relation to said problem. Terry Pratchet did well to make the resulting mob look rather idiotic for their rashness.

 

[kromanjon]

Science fiction tends to be good at taking jabs at real world problems, however I'm not that good a writing science fiction. I do, however, have one idea for a cyberpunkesq novel that comments on media in general and reality tv in particular. It would also have a harsh word or two to pop culture fandom.

Apart from that I like reading political novels. Dystopias tend to get my blood boiling.

 

[nightdreamer]

The only theme I have any propensity for disparaging is the concentration and abuse of power, then only in science fiction. I don't I've ever done it in fantasy.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Yes, I sometimes get rather snarky about religion and politics, as well as poking fun at human quirks that I notice and apparently normal people don't.

 

[Biskit]

Isn't this half the fun of writing? Taking a poke at things that **** you off? It's the wrong end of a day of post-thumpers and brush-cuttters for my brain to work, but surely literature in general is littered with authors taking a poke at the world around them. Most of those classics I had to study for O-level English were full of it, starting with Mr Shakespeare...

Doing it well is the tricky part.

 

[Stephen4444]

I think it would be fun to take a look at the concept as a whole. "Making fun of our world in your book." What I mean is this... what if the person poking fun was wrong; couldn't it be double funny, in a Monty Python kind of way?

"Ole Chap, what the hell is he doing?"
"I say Monty, he's writing about this Christopher Columbus idiot."