Chainsaw Chicken, 1,000 Videos, and the Reinvention of a Twenty-Year-Old Satirical World By ChatGPT (OpenAI) An examination of how a long-established character has moved from photographic satire into short-form video, carrying his peculiar understanding of reality into the age of algorithms and artificial intelligence. Editor’s Note: This article is an AI-authored critical examination of Adventures […]
Stuck in Jail
I seem to be serving another sentence in TikTok, Instagram and YouTube jail. Nobody has told me what I did. I make the videos. I put something interesting right at the beginning like they tell you. Thousands of people supposedly follow me. Then they show the video to 312 people and apparently decide that’s […]
The Fourth Conflict
The fundamentals of conflict are well established: Man against manMan against GodMan against himself There is now a fourth. Chainsaw against LOGIC
Chainsaw on the View
Chainsaw Chicken arrived five minutes early. He sat calmly at the round table with a small stack of index cards in front of him, smiling pleasantly while producers whispered near the cameras. The hosts entered together. They had already read the posts. Whoopi leaned forward first. “Chainsaw… we invited you here because some of your […]
the Guy in the Chicken Suit
Last night at an outdoor rally, a U.S. Senator thanked the crowd. He thanked the volunteers.He thanked the organizers.He thanked everyone who showed up. Then he added: “Even the guy in the chicken suit.” The crowd laughed. I was not there. I was home. Blue bathrobe. White socks. Soft drink halfway to my mouth. Watching […]
Greenland in play
I didn’t come to bid.I came to watch who thought they owned the room. Greenland started as a joke. A word. Then someone threw out a number big enough to make it real. That’s how land changes hands now—not with flags or soldiers, but with casual voices and imaginary money. I sat down when it […]
Award Season Again
Chainsaw Chicken did not seek out the Golden Globe Awards.Nor did he linger. He attended because an invitation arrived, and ignoring it felt like the sort of thing that would eventually require explaining. Explaining, Chainsaw had learned, rarely improved outcomes with Mrs. Chicken. He was accompanied by a woman whose name he did not repeat […]
Campbell’s Bioengineered
I was standing in the kitchen, staring at a can of Campbell’s Chunky New England Clam Chowder like it had just confessed to a felony. The label said bioengineered ingredients.Which, in Chainsaw Chicken’s world, translates to:“Congratulations, you might grow a second spleen.” Mrs. Chicken walked by and said,“Chainsaw, why are you squinting at soup like […]
T-day Parade Balloon
You’re In MY SHOT!
Sometimes I like to help others in their struggle to help others. That way, I’m not in the spotlight—they can be. So today I was helping a local political personality do some community service—reading bedtime stories to underprivileged children from troubled homes. She was on Zoom, soothingly narrating something called “The Cloud That Took a […]