Timothy McSweeney's Car Horn is Stuck and He Has Mouthed “I’m Sorry” Three Times Already

Hello and welcome to the eighth edition of McSweeney’s Internet Substackency, the Substack of McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, a humor and satire website run by McSweeney’s Publishing.

How are things going? No, really. This is the eighth one of our Substackency’s, and we realized we’ve been like “US, US, US, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH—CLICK THE LINKS ALREADY” and haven’t taken time to check in with you to see how you’re doing. So, how goes it? Summer been good? Mom and Dad okay? How about Bruce? He bounce back yet? What a bad break, what with his latest hovercraft accident and all. What’s that make it now? Three hovercraft accidents in the last six weeks? Yikes. How does that happen? You would think after the first accident, he’d take it easy for a while. Or after the second hovercraft accident, the hovercraft police would suspend his hovercraft license. Mercy. How the heck did he even get into hovercrafting? Didn’t he used to be big into zeppelins? Yes, we know he crashed one into a Waffle House, but we thought he was more an air guy than an air/water guy. Anyway, let’s just hope Bruce settles down eventually and stops accidentally destroying niche modes of transportation.

Alright, on with the links…

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Tim Walz is America’s dad.

George Washington is America’s father.

Pedro Pascal is America’s daddy.

Jimmy Carter is America’s “one that got away.”

Stanley Tucci is America’s second husband who breathed new life into America as America was picking up the pieces after America’s divorce.

America’s cool aunt (who is revealed in the piece) kindly asks you to pass the salt and pepper at the family BBQ, and then click this link to read the rest.

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Let us go then, youse and I…

Do I dare
Distoib the universe?

In the room the women come and go,
Talking of Larry, Curly, Moe…

This brilliantly dumb piece is very brilliant and dumb, and like all brilliant and dumb things, you must send it to 17 of your brilliant and dumb friends, acquaintances, and famous people you follow on social media. So click this link, read it, and share it, you brilliant dummy.

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A WORD OR TWO FROM OUR STORE…

In Umbra, an intrepid magician sets out on an epic quest to save a mythic world under siege. Across vast forests and desiccated wastelands, past slumbering giants and barbecuing goblins, a hero journeys to an underground labyrinth, where a secret power rests—but can it save the world from destruction? Like a Lorax reboot by J. R. R. Tolkien—complete with slime monsters, goblin hordes, and a flying pirate ship—Jordan Speer’s wordless, jaw-dropping, astonishingly detailed picture-book debut is a dazzling medieval odyssey for adventure-seeking readers of all ages.

Umbra is out this fall. Preorder it over at our store.

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We are a group of private individuals who disagree with your amoral business practices and have kidnapped your wife, because four of us are Scorpios, and you know how we are when we get together—you better be glad we didn’t make a worse mess of this, LOL. We follow your public stock holdings and know you have the money. Please follow our instructions to the letter if you want to see your wife again, and I know you do because she is super pretty!!

Just to say it again: SO sorry about this, I know this is annoying, ugh.

This piece is written by an Emmy award nominee (Megan wrote for and produced Parks & Rec and The Good Place), so rules are rules, and you must follow this link and read the rest of the piece and then share it with all a minimum of four great aunts. (Not our problem if you don’t have four second cousins—borrow someone else’s. Or, whatever, fine: first cousins once removed will work too.)

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And here’s this week’s BLAST FROM THE PAST, a classic Tendency piece from our archives…

Depending on whom you ask, the use of the active voice over the passive is arguably the most fundamental writer’s maxim, thought to lend weight, truth, and power to declarative statements. This absolutist view is flawed, however, because language is an art of nuance. From time to time, writers may well find illustrative value in the lightest of phrases, sentences so weightless and feathery that they scarcely even seem to exist at all. These can convey details well beyond the crude thrust of the hulking active voice, and when used strictly as ornamentation, they needn’t actually convey anything at all.

Now, we know we always say, “Please read the rest” during these link texts, but with this one, you really need to read the whole thing, as the satire really hits later on in the piece. Trust us on this one!

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