Best of the Bee: The Beginning

My favorite articles from my start at The Babylon Bee in 2018

I thought it might be fun to look over some of The Babylon Bee articles I wrote during my time there. I started writing for them in June of 2018 and left at the very end of 2021, so I have about three and a half years’ worth of articles. I was curious how many articles I wrote for them, but it’s hard to say as there are no bylines and people contribute to articles in various ways. I did have a Google Drive in which I made a file for every article I wrote from scratch, so I just did a count on how many files were in that folder. And the number (no fooling): 666.

Huh.

Few caveats: Not all those articles got published (rejected The Babylon Bee articles might be a good post for another day), and I think that count included a couple folders. But anyway, I wrote somewhere in the vicinity of six hundred and sixty-six articles.

And that’s way more than I was thinking. I thought I’d do a quick scan for my favorite articles, but then I had this big list of ones I wanted to highlight and I hadn’t even gone a fraction of the way through them all. So instead, I’m going to do this in parts. Today, I’m going to talk about just the ones I did in 2018 — so my first six months or so.

I should note that in the beginning, I was writing maybe two or three articles for the Bee a week. I was also writing anonymously at the time — I didn’t make it public I was writing for the Bee. I’ve always worried about getting too big a head, and I thought it would be neat to see a reaction to my writing without my name attached.

Anyway, here are my favorites from 2018:

Having Solved All Earthly Problems, Trump Announces Space Force

This is my very first article I wrote for the Bee. I don’t have much to say except that I kept finding Space Force an endlessly amusing topic. It makes me laugh every time I hear the name, but at the same time it’s like super cool. I want to be able to tell my kids things like, “Hey! No whining. They don’t let whiners in Space Force.”

Senate Democrats Demand Supreme Court Nominee Not Be Unduly Influenced By U.S. Constitution

This one is notable in that I think it was my first one that ended up on Snopes as a meme got distributed using the fake quotes from it. Fake news!

Report: Millennials More Open To Socialism, Touching Hot Stove, Sticking Face In Sack Full Of Badgers

I just find it hilarious when you argue disparate things at once, seamlessly moving between them (like this classic clip from Community). Also, who can’t love the phrase “democratic sticking your face in a sack full of badgers”?

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Encased In Carbonite Until Next Court Session

Classic Frank and Ethan mess-around! This was my first article that got an Ethan Nicolle photoshop. Ethan usually took a long time at his photoshops as he has no concept of “good enough.” Later, they brought on AJ Powers as Ethan got too busy with other projects to be on call for photoshops. Also, Kyle Mann got pretty good at them himself. Still, nothing beats an elaborate Ethan Nicolle fabricated image.

Study: Average American Now Complains More In A Week Than People Living Through The Black Plague Did Their Entire Lives

This is just one of those that I kept wanting to re-pitch as it always seemed so relevant. We have the most advantages of anyone in all of human history, but man do we whine a lot.

In Major Social Faux Pas, Trump Body Slams Queen Of England

Another Frank headline with Ethan photoshop. I just loved the portrayal as of body slamming the queen as this faux pas/cultural misunderstanding. This is also a good example of my ideal political article where it’s just dumb with no clear political point.

Murder Rate Finally Plateaus In Chicago As Even Murderers Too Scared To Go Out At Night

This is just me being logical. At a certain murder rate, murderers would have to be murdering each other causing murder to plateau. I also love the frank discussion of the problem by frustrated murderers who now fear for their lives and the phrase “regular, salt-of-the-earth murderers.”

Trump Secures Unlimited Chips And Salsa In Mexican Trade Deal

This one did really well, and I think it shows the ideal for a Trump article: It’s unclear if you’re laughing with him or at him.

Trump Wins 44th Consecutive 'Employee Of The Month' Award At White House

Trump thought very highly of himself, and it was a fun thing to play with (man, I miss him). What I love in this one is the specifics of his competition for the award with other White House employees like the janitor and tour guide.

The Bee Explains: Common Racist Hand Signals

I don’t remember how many of these I wrote, but I include because it has one of my all time favorite jokes which is explaining why holding up all five fingers is racist because “five being approximately the number of letters in Hitler.”

Tomahawk-Wielding Elizabeth Warren Vows To Take Land Back From The Pale Faces

It almost feels tired making an Elizabeth Warren pretends to be Native American joke, but this was right after she thought she vindicated herself by revealing she was 1/1024th Native American. This leads to my favorite part of the article: the math for a “literal microaggression.”

Opinion: We Tried Republican, Then We Tried Democrat, Then We Tried Republican, Then We Tried Democrat, Then We Tried Republican. Is It Time We Try Democrat?

Who doesn’t love the two-party system? Now, though, I think the opinion is “maybe it’s time to try Republican and see if that fixes everything.”

Study: 60% Of Parenting Is Locating Children's Shoes

This one is close to my heart because I have a son who is especially creative at losing his shoes. Once when we were trying to leave grandma’s, we could only find one of his shoes and spent an hour trying to find the other. Ends up, the second shoe was in our car. The day before, he had walked in with one shoe and apparently not noticed. That’s out-of-the-box thinking.

Christians Face Clear Choice Between Party That's A Hypocritical Mockery Of Their Faith And One That's Openly Hostile To It

This does not seem to be changing anytime soon. I also like this one because I finally fit in a joke I had for a while which is Trump referring to the second epistle to the Corinthians as “Corinthians 2: Corinthians Harder.”

Broward County Brings In Expert Consultant To Speed Up Ballot Count

This is one of my all-time top articles based on shares and views… even though I can’t remember what the incident is this is parodying. Such is the nature of these things. This is also a good example of a simple but effective Kyle Mann photoshop. My only regret in this is I think I misspelled the Count’s laugh which should be “ah ah ah” not “eh eh eh.”

Hallmark Christmas Movie Hailed As 'Trite, Predictable'

I don’t think it’s possible for a man not to make fun of these Christmas movies our wives enjoy. I’ve thought of what interesting things I would do if I were tasked to write the script of a Christmas romance, but then I realized you can’t do anything interesting or the audience would protest.

If I can criticize one thing here, the font on that movie title is all wrong.

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Wow. That’s a lot for the first six months… and I didn’t even write as often then. It’s going to take a while to get through all my favorites. But whatever; we’re in no rush.

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