Contest: Make Your Own "The Deep State is Actually Kind of Awesome" Video

The New York Times made a hilarious version. Can you produce a more representative entry? A few hours with iMovie could win a prize

The New York Times this week published a video editorial so unintentionally funny as to be nearly spoof-proof, titled, “It Turns Out the Deep State is Actually Kind of Awesome.” Walter Kirn and I do a full Mystery Science Theater treatment in the new episode of America This Week, so I won’t spoil the suspense, but it’s inspired, a combination of Paul Verhoeven, Orf, and Goebbels.

If video humor were my bailiwick I’d do this myself, but since it isn’t, I thought I’d offer a prize for the best alternate version of “The Deep State is Actually Kind of Awesome.” Meet Ted McFriendly. He likes Star Trek, Cocoa Puffs, and drives a General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper Drone. He can shoot the testes off a Chinese disinformation agent from space… You should follow your own heart, but ths is the kind of rich material with which you’d be working.

I don’t want anyone spending a ton of time on this. It should be doable with found footage and voice-over. Submissions to taibbi@substack.com. Prize of $1000, and we’ll publish the winning entry here on Racket with a write-up and a Q&A. I’m not going to paywall the results and I’m not trying to make money off this; I just thought it might be funny, and a way to coax out some lurking talent in the Racket community. If no one feels like bothering, that’s okay, too.

More coming today, in a more serious vein.