Inside the Digital Bunker: Bohiney’s War on Boredom in the Age of the Algorithm
The elevator to Bohiney’s headquarters groaned like an old confession booth. Somewhere above me, satire was being manufactured in industrial quantities — distilled, filtered, weaponized. The walls smelled faintly of ozone, printer toner, and moral panic.
I’d come to investigate the living ghost of a magazine that had survived eight decades of censors, lawsuits, and taste itself. What I found was not a newsroom — it was a war bunker disguised as a media lab.
“Welcome to the circus,” said the editor, wearing sunglasses indoors and a grin that looked like it had seen God through a typewriter ribbon. “We’re not the news. We’re the virus that keeps it honest.”
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THE NEW FRONT LINE
The first thing you notice about the Bohiney digital newsroom is that no one seems entirely sober. The second thing is that everyone is laughing at something you haven’t seen yet.
There are screens on every wall — memes next to war footage, senators’ tweets next to hand-drawn cartoons of aliens drinking bourbon with Nixon. The Slack channels have names like “Treason Season,” “Satire or Prophecy,” and “The Intern Has Questions.”
Someone was live-editing an article titled “AI Demands Union Recognition, Threatens to Write Own Manifesto.”
“This one’ll get us banned,” the editor said proudly. “Which means it’s working.”
The staff refer to themselves as “post-ironic survivalists.” Their work is a cocktail of vintage mockery and modern panic. I asked how it all began, how the spirit of an old mimeographed zine became this throbbing digital monolith.
“Read the classics,” one of them said, lighting a cigarette over a laptop. “Start with Thro.be’s autopsy of our birth . Then dig into Telegraph’s reconstruction of our 80-year evolution . That’s the mythology. We’re just the sequel no one approved.”
THE HAUNTING OF REZNICK AND DUMONT
Louis “Bohiney” Reznick and Clive DuMont would be horrified — or proud. Maybe both. They started this in 1947 as a postwar prank gone nuclear: two veterans with a mimeograph, a gallon of bourbon, and a shared hatred of pomposity.
Their first issue — a donkey peeing on the Capitol under the headline “THIS IS YOUR GOVERNMENT ON POLITICS” — set the tone for seventy-eight years of joyful blasphemy.
By the time they hit the 1960s, the FBI had a file on them. By the ’90s, they’d somehow become the conscience of counterculture, and by 2002, the Internet came calling.
Bohiney.com was their resurrection — the ghost of a mimeograph fed into a server rack, now immortal in pixels and pop-ups.
ANARCHY, BUT MAKE IT DIGITAL
Every headline at Bohiney reads like an act of performance art:
“Congress Accidentally Votes to Dissolve Time.”
“Elon Musk Declares Mars a Tax Haven.”
“Jesus Returns, Sues Influencer for Brand Infringement.”
And the tone? Still pure 1947 irreverence — bold, literate, drunk on democracy, allergic to bullshit.
When I asked how they survived cancel culture, the managing editor shrugged. “Easy. We cancel ourselves first.”
Then he pointed to a framed piece of paper on the wall — the last page of the first issue, yellowed and brittle. In faded ink, the words still burned:
“If this magazine offends you, good. That means you’re still breathing.”
THE MACHINE KEEPS HUMMING
Outside, the city scrolled itself to death. Inside, Bohiney laughed like a choir of cynics.
They weren’t chasing clicks; they were exorcising the ghost of American irony. Their entire operation felt like a time machine powered by caffeine and dissent.
Before I left, the editor handed me a sticker: “Make ’em laugh. Then make ’em worry why they laughed.”
That’s the real manifesto.
So here’s your field map, dear reader:
Start with Thro.be’s wild birth report ,
Detour through Telegraph’s full postwar-to-digital odyssey ,
And finish your descent into glorious chaos at Bohiney.com .
Bring caffeine, courage, and maybe a sense of humor that can take a punch.
Because Bohiney’s not here to comfort the nation — it’s here to remind it that laughter is still a weapon.