Celebrating 5 Years of Satirical “Journalism”

Five years ago, we published a very immature and poorly written satirical article poking fun at the petty grievances of Takoma Park, Maryland. We never would have thought that five years later we’d get invited to travel around the country to mock the petty grievances of an entire nation.

It’s been a busy and scary time for everyone: political division, COVID, insurrections, lack of free parking, etc. We’re just happy we can provide some comic relief when the world feels unjust. Through it all, The Takoma Torch has managed to grow each year. We thought we’d run out of jokes by now, but, fortunately, Takoma Park generates an endless supply of material.

We are as surprised as you are about how successful this venture has been. We’ve been mentioned on WAMU, been a guest on the Kojo Nnamdi Show, interviewed on Fox 5 News, highlighted on the cover of the Washington Post Metro Section, and, just last week, invited to speak at the University of Texas. We’ve won back-to-back 1st place prizes in Takoma Park’s 4th of July Parade, created a nationally-known mascot out of a cheaply constructed costume, and even successfully defended challenges to our First Amendment rights…twice!

Make no mistake – we are not real journalists, reporters, or truth tellers. We are merely a group of childish, lonely deviants looking for cheap laughs at others’ expense. We are the troll of trolls, the listserv lurkers, and abusers of the Oxford comma. Our Editor-in-Chief even uses a Samsung phone. What a dick!

While we clearly have no clue what we are doing, we do love to help those who do. We’ve partnered up with Montgomery Blair High School’s journalism students to promote their publication, Silver Chips. We’ve donated to many local news organizations and subscribed to their online platforms. We are even working on creating a scholarship for journalism students we hope to announce soon! By the end of this article, a feeling of generosity should overwhelm you, compelling you to take out your credit card and contribute to these champions of our free press.

We want to personally thank each and every one of our fans and haters for all of your likes, comments, shares, and mean tweets. Without you, we would have more time to focus on our actual jobs and have fewer legal bills. We hope that over the past five years we’ve not only made you laugh at dumb jokes, but also taught you type-A overachievers to stop taking yourselves so damn seriously all the time.

Words cannot describe how deeply grateful we are to all of you who chipped in to support our legal defense fund last week. We hope to see you all at our 5th Anniversary Party this Friday night at 6:30pm, March 8th, at the American Legion in Downtown Silver Spring. Let’s have a drink, eat some cake, play some interactive Mad Libs, and have a great time.

The flame of the Torch burns bright because of you.