Saucily preserving a sense of humour

Hyper-local news satire site the Beach Pickle lampoons life in the tight-knit neighbourhood

Beach dwellers hankering for locally grown satire can now get a taste of the Beach Pickle.

A riff on the American farcical news organization the Onion, the Pickle launched earlier this month with stories of Kew Gardens rink hogs and the ballooning dog population on the boardwalk.

The tight-knit community was ripe for satire, says creator Denma Itamunoala, 22.

“There’s a lot of funny, quirky things,” he said, for example familiar faces such as Hollywood, the pen-seller.

“There’s a lot of people like that and there’s just typical scenarios that most Beachers would recognize as things that happen to them all the time.”

For long-time Beach resident Katie Stucky, an article about a business opening and closing within a week did hit close to home.

“Maybe too close,” she said. The fake story brought up real anxieties for Stucky, who recently opened a small dog daycare on Queen St. E.

“I would say I’m as Beaches as a person can be.” DENMA ITAMUNOALA THE BEACH PICKLE CREATOR

Speculation swirled among locals, she said, wondering if the news was real or fake. When told by the Star it was a hoax, Stucky commended the authors for injecting humour into sometimes heated local discussions.

“Everybody’s always fighting on half of these social media pages and arguing. It’s always so stupid,” she said. “This is kind of fun to read. Sometimes you need that.”

Even real news organizations seem to appreciate it.

The non-profit newspaper Beach Metro Community News joined the Facebook discussion on an article about its young volunteer carriers striking.

“It is regretful that our carriers have taken such drastic measures, but please be assured that we are doing everything in our powers to resolve this ‘situation,’ ” said part of the paper’s tongue-in-cheek comment.

Itamunoala called the reaction “completely sportsman-like.”

It may not be the reaction he gets when his fake news site goes after locally distributed Your Ward News, a publication residents charge is anti- Semitic and which has prompted complaints to the Toronto police hate crimes unit.

While admitting he wasn’t aware of Your Ward News before discussion about it started on the Beach Pickle’s Facebook page, Itamunoala plans to lampoon it “shortly.”

For now, the goal is just to make people laugh, but generating some change would be a nice bonus, he says, pointing to the influence of political satirists Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.

“They joke about serious things and it actually gets people to pay attention. I think it’s a really great thing,” he said.

He started the site, along with two friends, in hopes of making their social circle crack up. But since the launch Jan. 12, the publication has drawn almost 500 Facebook followers, forcing Itamunoala to up his game for an audience of strangers.

“If you were joking around on a riff with your friends, you know how jokes go: they just pop out of nowhere and the next thing you know you’re on the floor. But if you seriously broke it down, it’s a little more challenging,” he said.

Though he doesn’t know everyone reading, Itamunoala can see himself and his friends in a lot of the content.

“I would say I’m as Beaches as a person can be,” he said.

“I don’t think it would work if I was (making fun of others.) I think it’s more like making fun of ourselves.”

“Everybody’s always fighting on half of these social media pages and arguing. . . . This is kind of fun to read. Sometimes you need that.” KATIE STUCKY BEACH RESIDENT