In January, the satirical anthology series White Lotus won two Golden Globes, adding to the five Emmys it picked up in September.
In 2022, the film Triangle of Sadness – which also satirised capitalism – nabbed the Palme d'Or at that year's Cannes Film Festival. And Korean film Parasite became the first non-English language film to be named Best Picture at the 92nd Academy Awards in 2020.
The art of satire is alive and well. Since its origins in ancient Rome, it has continued to find audiences for millennia.
For many, satire is therapeutic, funny and a great way to hold the powerful to account.
"I think one of the most common justifications from satirists is that they are trying to do an intervention in society," Dr Adam James Smith, the co-director of the York Research Unit for the Study of Satire, tells ABC RN's Future Tense.
"They're trying to change or stop something for the public good."
But thanks to the internet, satire as we know it is changing. And Dr Smith says this has both good and bad implications.
Digital evolution
The internet — and specifically social media — is stripping satire of its nuance, Dr Smith says. It means things are increasingly being taken literally.
Social media's business model is also challenging traditional satire, Dr Smith says. He points out that the best way to measure engagement on social media "is through conflict", so users are incentivised to "read things in bad faith" and share their take.
However, on the upside, the internet has encouraged new forms of satires, including satirical hoaxes.
"The satire kicks in when everyone realises [the joke] after they've believed it for a while, or you can [see that] the satire isn't actually in the artefact itself, it's in the reactions to it."
A great example is a 2017 conspiracy that claimed that the US government had replaced every bird with surveillance drone replicas. This began to spread quickly across the internet.
Then, in December 2021, its creator, Peter McIndoe, publicly confirmed the movement was a satire against conspiracy culture.
"Yes, we have been intentionally spreading misinformation for the past four years, but it's with a purpose. It's about holding up a mirror to America in the internet age," McIndoe told the New York Times.
Another upside is that the popularity of online memes means everyone can appreciate a dash of satire. But the associate professor says memes could also be shifting some of the aims of satire.
"When something bad happens, something awful is announced, if the impulse is, 'How can I make a really successful meme about this, it's going to get thousands of free tweets and make me famous for 15 minutes,' [that's not good]," he says.
"That sort of takes over from the bit where you're like, 'Oh, God, that's terrible. What can we do about it?.'"
Exaggerating the exaggerated
The post-truth era has complicated the most recent evolution of satire.
Historically, satire has been used to mock political leaders for their inaction or poor behaviour. And it can make a difference.
"[Satire] can really have an impact on them when they're showing some sort of weakness. It can certainly help bring someone down if they're already doing it," Professor Robert Phiddian, a English professor at Flinders University, says.
For example, a paper published in the Public Opinion Quarterly in 2012 found that comedian Tina Fey's satirical portrayal of Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live negatively influenced Republican voters against the vice presidential candidate during the 2008 US election.
But Dr Smith says the behaviours of our current political leaders are difficult to lampoon.
"The exaggeration, which is a fundamental part of the satirical manoeuvre, how'd you exaggerate something … that is already exaggerated?" Dr Smith says.
Recent hilarious-if-they-weren't-true examples have included a former US president keeping classified documents at a resort, politicians defending the right to own a gas stove, an elected official allegedly lying about his background and a prime minister eating a raw onion for the cameras.
Yet Dr White says satire continues to adapt, allowing the art form to focus on reality rather than exaggeration.
"I think the way to do it is to go the opposite way. So the satire would arise from the reality rather than the exaggeration, because they've already provided the exaggeration."
For example, since 2019, the UK activist group Led By Donkeys has placed billboards across the country criticising its leaders for Brexit, the response to COVID-19 and the current economic crisis.
'Pure satire'
Dr White says that these new challenges driven by the internet are shifting things closer to older forms of satire or "pure satire".
"It's exactly what the 18th-century satirists were doing," he says.
The 18th century was a significant era for satire, when the gags were focused not only on individuals but also society at large.
Dr White says that this form of satire is more suited to the current political and economic climate. And he says the appetite for satirising society is growing.
"In the last three years, there have been so many films, mainstream films have come out of the cinema that have been works of satire. Parasite was a global hit, wasn't it? That was a satirical film," he says.
Along with Triangle of Sadness and White Lotus, other examples that satirise modern life include Glass Onion: A Knives Out Story and Don't Look Up – two of the most watched Netflix films of all time.
"I think what the success of these things [shows is] that there's an enormous appetite for satire, but it's not necessarily the 20 per cent of people that are on Twitter. It's everybody else," Dr White says.
"So I think satire has a massive audience and will thrive."
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