The calculus of supply and demand has driven WMBAD to abandon humour and focus instead on hot takes. Here Robbie Nicol, Finnius Teppett et al pitch their wares

White Man Behind A Desk has given up comedy because it is a moral evil. Some people might think we gave up because of our inability to convert views into financial success or because we were never that funny to begin with. To those people, we would say, “Shut up.”

Luckily, we have discovered a job that requires neither knowledge nor humour – political commentary.

The White Man Behind A Desk writing staff now intends to devote their time solely to the production of inflammatory hot takes. To prove our worth to potential employers, here is a batch we thoughtlessly threw together this morning:

Free speech

Example hot take: “For all of the left’s talk of inclusiveness, togetherness, and co-operation, it’s clearly a smokescreen for the real agenda.” – Mike Hosking, 2018

We have drafted the following articles ready for immediate publication:

• We should be able to create and organise local fascist movements with the hope of electing a white nationalist dictator without being labelled a ‘Nazi’.
• Free speech under attack: My mum asked me not to bring up my herpes flare-up in front of her book club.
• Twitter is blocking me from publishing tweets simply because they’re over 280 characters.
• I don’t have time to defend every silenced member of society, but I would like to start with the Nazis.
• So much for “transparent government”. No response to my repeated OIA requests for any and all information on the times of the day that Trevor Mallard’s house is empty.

Housing NZ compensating evicted tenants 

Example hot take: “How many crooks and meth people are we compensating and how as a taxpayer, as you’re paying the bill, do you feel about that?” – Mike Hosking, 2018

I can write the following articles in seconds, but my fee will not reflect that:

• Innocent until proven guilty might work for the innocent, but if these crooks are so innocent, why am I calling them crooks?
• Let’s all just thank our lucky stars that they don’t know how to test for cocaine.
• Sometimes tax money gets spent on the poor, which I am not. So should we stop paying tax? I say yes.
• REALLY CHANGED MY MIND ON METH NOW FOR REASONS MY LAWYER HAS ADVICSED ME NOT TO SISCUSS

Suffrage

Example hot take: “Men also had to struggle for voting rights.” – Leighton Smith, 2018

Here are some articles on suffrage we would happily write for a large, nominal fee:

• Men existed for thousands of years without the right to vote, but women got the vote a mere 50 years after being invented in 1843. Lucky for some.
• If women are so smart, why did it take them so long to figure out pants?
• Women have had the vote my entire life — is that why I’m impotent?
• World wars before women got the vote? Zero. World wars after they got the vote? Two. Why do women love war?
• Whose suffrage will we be celebrating in another 125 years? Crows?

Climate change

Example hot take: “I live for the day we live can yell at the ‘man made’ climate change types I TOLD YOU SO!” – Leighton Smith, 2018

If the following articles are not published within the next week, the mainstream media is obviously corrupt:

• My nan believed in climate change and now she’s dead.
• Does climate change really matter when, realistically, I will be dead in five to seven years?
• The left purport to love change, so why are they fighting climate progress?
• Convince me climate change is real: show me two billion dead bodies.
• Climate change is a conspiracy drummed up to sell Jaffas and I have not worked out the details.
• Climate change isn’t real: I’m selling my beach front property and moving to higher ground for a different reason.

Having given up comedy, White Man Behind A Desk is touring an extremely serious, totally humourless seminar to Dunedin from the 27th-29th of September, and to Auckland from the 3rd-13th of October. For an anti-comedy TED-style talk, there’s more fake blood than you might expect.