Hello and welcome to the fifty-eighth edition of McSweeney’s Internet Substackency, the Substack of McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, a humor and satire website run by McSweeney’s Publishing.
Last week, via a Bluesky post, we reminded folks that 99 percent of the stuff we publish comes in through unsolicited submissions. This seemed to take some by surprise. There’s a false assumption out there that our stuff is written by a team of staff writers. But up until earlier this year, when we hired Carlos Greaves as our in-house satirist, our articles have been created in darkness by troubled Americans (and beyond) who read our submission guidelines and then sent their work to us with their fingers fully crossed.
So, yep, submissions are our lifeblood. It’s amazing that after 27 years, we still get hundreds of humor and satire pieces a week, penned by hard-working writers, both new and experienced, from all over the world. We are and will be forever thankful for their efforts.
And if you’ve ever hesitated to send us something, what are you waiting for? Go on, email us your comedy writing, while it’s still legal. We will reply to your submission within 7.39 days.
Alright, on with the links…
1. The Only One
Before you thought about work-life balance, professionalism, or online security, there was just one email. You were a simple, blissful idiot.
2. Personal
You learned that only a baby fawn mixes all aspects of existence into a single stew of email chaos. So you created an account just for family and friends—memes, photos, and half-hearted attempts to meet for coffee. You marveled at your newfound organizational prowess. Then it dawned on you that you had no idea which email to use for logins, work emails, and subscriptions to your friends’ newsletters.
Read the rest of this extremely relatable cry for help.
Please don’t make any jokes that offend or contradict our viewers. By “viewers,” we mean our free-speech-championing president, who many people say deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. Late-night jokes shouldn’t be biting, critical, or funny. Jokes should be more like third wives — anodyne, mostly quiet, and on good terms with convicted pedophiles.
Please read and share this piece before the FCC makes us delete it.
A WORD OR TWO FROM OUR STORE…
Hark. It has returned. Behold The McSweeney’s Advent Calendar: your new favorite holiday tradition. Acclaimed in 2024 by Wirecutter as one of the top Advent calendars around (before selling out in record time from our shared mortal plane), this treasury of the very best holiday humor writing from McSweeney’s Internet Tendency (festooned throughout with holiday transmissions from across our vast literary empire) will guide you through the season like so many Dickensian ghosts.
Inside this box of twenty-four all-new-for-2025 gem-like minibooks (illustrated by Sophy Hollington), you’ll find such luminous titles as Donald Barthelme Narrates the Progress of the Reindeer, Cormac McCarthy’s The Mall, and Joseph of Nazareth Has Had It with Hotels.com, alongside comics, letters, novel excerpts, award-winning poetry, histories of kazoo orchestras, notes to Hawaiian deities, and more, all waiting to be torn open and discovered for your holiday merriment.
Gather round the Yule log and count down the days of December—or any other twenty-four-day span in need of daily festive guffaws and a light kindling of the spirit—with The McSweeney’s Advent Calendar. Order yours today before it evaporates like the joyous holiday memories of yesteryear.
This is a preorder. The 2025 McSweeney’s Advent Calendar will ship to readers in October with plenty of time for holiday shipping.
Purchase the 2025 McSweeney’s Advent Calendar alongside a McSweeney’s Quarterly regular or gift subscription and get an additional 10% off your entire order.
If a Democratic lawmaker and her husband are gunned down, it’s an isolated incident carried out by a lone wolf.
If a right-wing activist is gunned down, it’s part of a coordinated effort by the radical left to incite violence.
If a gunman murders nineteen children at an elementary school, it’s disgusting to politicize the tragedy by talking about gun control.
If a Republican presidential candidate is targeted in an assassination attempt, it’s fair to blame it on left-wing rhetoric before the shooter has even been identified.
Click to read the rest, which is another excellent example of why Carlos is our sole staff writer.
Finally, here’s this week’s BLAST FROM THE PAST, an older classic from our archives…
FinalDraft.pdf
FinalDraft_1.pdf
FinalDraft_1_Send_This_One.pdf
FinalDraft_1_No_Actually_Send_This_One.pdf
FinalFinalDraft_1_This_Draft_Is_Correct.pdf
FinalFinalFinalDraft_1_But_This_One_Has_Three_Finals.pdf
FINALDRAFT_1_NOW_ITS_BACK_TO_ONLY_ONE_FINAL_BUT_ITS_IN_CAPS.pdf
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