Happy Woman Magazine

Good satire holds a funhouse mirror up to the solemn, dignified face of evil and reveals the monster within. The performance can (and should) be fun. The performance can (and should) provoke the audience. The key is getting people to turn, watch and wonder.

The art of satire boasts a long and noble history, dating back to Gaius Petronius and his Satyricon, a randy send-up of Nero's bloated court. Since then, we've seen The Decameron skewering the pompous and corrupt clergy, Jonathan Swift's "Modest Proposal," and the mock headlines of The Onion to name just a few.

So when visitors to Happy Woman Magazine emerge from its virtual pages in a lather of angry, indignant outrage, better-informed readers can smile smugly and nod at the latest bearer of satire's proud heritage.

Happy Woman's slogan is: "We Think So You Don't Have To!" Anyone who misses the site's intent is in for a bumpy ride; the magazine's articles are satirical jibes at the sort of destructive pap regularly churned out by American women's magazines, and are so artfully assembled as to be truly convincing to the casual or easily confused reader.

One article, entitled "How To Make Your Child a Star!!!!" is chillingly callous about the steps one should take in order to turn your child into a little money-making machine.

Dressing your child up in theme clothing is a guaranteed attention getter. For example: a pilgrim for Thanksgiving, a football for Superbowl. You are only limited by your imagination and by how much weight your child can carry on their head.

Many articles strike chillingly close to home. Take the disturbingly accurate "Your Guy's Most Secret Thoughts!":

After we make love and my wife is snuggled up next to me she usually asks me what I'm thinking. I used to say nothing but I realized that's the wrong answer so I tell her I'm thinking about her. What I'm usually thinking about though is a ham sandwich.

From miracle diets to inane quizzes to generalized, cliché-ridden advice about how to maintain shallow, desperate relationships, Happy Woman Magazine runs the gamut of pop psychology, trend-driven "reports" and cookie recipes. Where others would cake on painfully acidic or obvious attacks, Happy Woman skewers its targets with a subtlety sorely lacking in most online "humor" sites.

Site creator Sharon Grehan is clearly pissed off. And it takes only a cursory scan of the commerce-driven drool coughed up by most of today's women's magazines to give you a sense of why.

Instead of just sitting at home and seething, she's started a sprawling, ambitious website designed to get readers to consider what they get when they idly thumb through the latest Cosmo.

Quixotic? Perhaps. Admirable? Absolutely. Viva ugly reflections.

— James Norton (jim@flakmag.com)