Coming up with a good premise to lay out in the headline of a satirical article is more than half the battle. Here are some characteristics that your premise might want to have. They’re not mutually exclusive or exhaustive, and you definitely don’t have to meet all of these. 

WHAT MAKES A GOOD PREMISE?

• Has a clear, appropriate target and an implicit critique, usually one that can be easily distilled just by reading the headline. For example, “Feminist Win! Hasty Pudding to Let Woman of the Year Operate Lights at Man of the Year Ceremony,” pokes fun at the Hasty Pudding’s former policy barring women from being a part of their cast. 

• Exposes a tension or contradiction by framing something in more explicit or exaggerated terms than presented in real life. See: "New Gay Icon Just A Bowling Ball in Wig" OR "Need ONE more girl for IM volleyball tonight or we kill the first hostage!" by your IM rep

• Illuminates a phenomenon with such precision that a reader would relate to the article immediately upon reading, but potentially would not have been able to articulate the subject off of the top of their head. See our most-liked article, The Best Part of My Day is Walking Next to That One Warm Spot Next to Canaday, as an example of something highly relatable to but never actively thought about, or Despair Sinners: Purgatory Is Actually Room L166 at the IOP. If your article is only relatable and does not have any clear target, then it should definitely meet this criteria. 

• Synthesizes multiple themes in an unexpected and/or original way. See Lamont Securitas Guards Begin Checking for Emotional Baggage AND I’m Not like the Other Girls; I’m A Lamp

• Has a double meaning and/or elaborate sequence of puns. See Lowell Bell Just Wants to Get Banged OR Seniors Select Class Marshalls, Location #1374 in Plano, TX 

• Establishes a vivid character, usually one whose contradictory personality makes them funny. See Oliver Twist meets varsity athlete in Please Bro, May I Have Some More Grilled Chicken?, the community service-loving final club dude in Bro, You Gotta Punch the Mission Hill After School Program, the math-hating Social Studies concentrator in Look, I’m All for Interdisciplinary Education, But Don’t Fucking Make Me Do Math

• Is intentionally reductive and to-the-point, as a means of reverting readers back to a blunt reality. See Quirky White Man Interested in Japanese Culture, which attemps to make fun of the commonality of the white-man-loves-Asian culture trope, despite how much Isle of the Dogs might have made Wes Anderson seem like an idiosyncratic visionary.

• Intentionally nonsensical, sometimes as a means of poking fun at the self-seriousness of certain types of writing. See It’s 4:20 O’ Clock by Dean Dingman OR EXPOSE: Blue Bottle Coffee Does Not Have Any Blue Bottles

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