Hard Digest December 14: Early Access GWAR, Facebook Shirts, Moms, and More

GWAR Forced to Reduce Fake Cum Usage After Tariffs Cut Supply to 5 Barrels a Day

By Rob Ryder

RICHMOND — Legendary metal group GWAR reportedly cut their usage of onstage fake cum to approximately five barrels a day after new tariffs increased prices to unsustainable levels, drenched sources in the front row confirmed.

“GWAR has always given fans the best, and we’ve always sourced our cum from a classified location on a planet beyond Scumdoggia in the 7th Level of Hexorgan Centari,” said Blöthar the Berserker, who took the helm for the band after his awakening in 2014. “For centuries, the trade federation was peaceful with Earth, but suddenly the galactic balance is out of order, and now we have to pay more for our precious semen. Times are so tough that we’re even considering holding a cum drive charity event to restock our reserves.”

Prop master for GWAR Allen Steubing discussed the task of keeping the band fully stocked on various bodily fluids.

“We’ve always sourced our blood domestically, which is not only great for the local economy, but fiscally responsible as it keeps shipping costs fairly low,” said Steubing while testing the viscosity of a fresh batch of puss. “We tried domestically sourcing spermatic fluid from all around Earth, but it just wasn’t the same. Even with the shipping expenses across several million light years, the extra cost is worth it. Hexorgan Centari cum really is the best and GWAR fans will not tolerate being soaked by anything less.”

Dr. Heidi Bauer of the University of Pennsylvania Economics Department was highly critical of the tariffs and believes their intended impact is not being felt.

“Tariffs like this always have the same consequence, it’s essentially a sales tax on working-class heavy metal, the fans, and the bands. Imagine being an immigrant metal band who came to America to pursue a dream and rule over the human race, and suddenly, you gotta pay 40% more for your bodily emissions,” said Dr. Bauer, while thumbing through a stack of Roadrunner Records compilation CDs. “While importing products like electronics, avocados, and ejaculate may seem like sending money out of the US, it ultimately frees the domestic economy to focus on different sectors including high-tech manufacturing, information technology, and intergalactic theatrical heavy metal.”

At press time, PornHub was rumored to be tapping its vast cum reserve to take advantage of rising prices.

Six Shirts From Facebook Ads That Broadcast to the World “My Kids Don’t Speak to Me Anymore”

By Ben Friedman

If you’ve ever seen those hyper aggressive right wing shirts in real life, chances are whoever is wearing them only found them because their Facebook algorithm has been feeding them nonstop ads from dropship shirt companies like “SHIRTS 4 PATRIOTS” and crap. But within the endless deluge of obnoxious novelty shirts, there are those elite few that additionally broadcast to the world that their children have had enough of their insanity and went full “no contact.”

It’s bad enough to lose a parent to reactionary political posts, but it’s even worse when they advertise it everywhere they go. Even worse than that is when they wear said advertisements while moving their kid into their new dorm and give off the vibe they’re one of those families where every uncle is the racist uncle. Their kid is likely to spend Thanksgiving at their roommate’s house this year (and every year afterward.)

Nothing like a little threat of violence (and ignorance of what the First Amendment protects) to motivate your progeny to block you on every social media platform. “Why couldn’t I have just bought one of those American flag shirts from Old Navy like a normal dad?” they think as their daughter sends them straight to voicemail for the fifth day in a row. All they can do now is wear their patriotism on their sleeve (and chest and back) and hope to get a “hell yeah” from a passerby at the gas station.

Ah yes, this old chestnut. It’s a great shirt to wear when you want the world to know you’re a self proclaimed sovereign citizen who doesn’t want to pay taxes, but it’s also a dead giveaway the family court judge doesn’t agree that watching Alex Jones videos count towards the homeschool curriculum and the kids permanently live with their grandparents now. At least they can take solace in knowing their kids were actually listening when being taught about emancipation.

Math is hard, especially if the wearer has also spent 1776% more money on guns than say, Christmas presents. Speaking of Christmas, this is probably one of those families who send out the holiday card with everyone posing with an AR-15. And listen you can try and indoctrinate all the kiddos into thinking Democrats are going to round up everyone’s guns, but one kid will always slip through the cracks because they want to be able to go to the grocery store with someone who doesn’t open carry three guns because shit might get dicey in the produce aisle.

All birth month shirts might as well say, “I call the police on kids playing in the street near my house because I was born in February and I hate life and yes I’m on Ivermectin.” This is a walking billboard to warn anyone nearby that their kids had sleepovers at someone else’s house and moved out the day they turned 18. And in all likelihood, this is the same kind of parent who, after buying more short story-length print tees, will rant on Facebook about losing their kids to the woke mind virus.

The official shirt of someone who takes the family to church then goes straight to a restaurant to berate a waitress for 90 minutes straight without leaving a tip. You can only embarrass your kids (and make them pretend they’re young enough to order off the kid’s menu) in public so many times before they get fed up with the whole “Christian warrior” shtick. Satan isn’t working the lunch shift at Applebees, my guy. It won’t be much of an issue for their kid, who moved to a Midwest city big enough to keep any bible-thumping suburbanite parent at a safe distance.

Mom Can’t Wait to Show You Video She Can’t Find

By Jeff Bender 

WINONA, Minn. — On a recent holiday pop-in to your apartment Thursday, your mom Nancy insisted you had to see this video as she began searching for it on her phone, incredibly frustrated sources reported.

“It’s the cutest thing, oh my God, I can’t even. I won’t say what happens. But it’s two animals. Different animals. And they’re just— I saw it this morning. I died,” said your mom before dumping her tote bag and crashing down on your couch, nearly maiming your newborn kitten Vinny. “Wait. What’s this? Oh, hell. ‘Enter a password’? What’s my password? I don’t have an account. Oh. I’m in the wrong thingy. ‘Do I want to install an update?’ Override. Override. Okay. Here we go. You’re gonna love this. Wait. Where’d it go?”

Ten minutes in, you were still leaning awkwardly over the couch ready to view what she called “probably the greatest thing since you were born.”

“She hadn’t said hello to Gina, my girlfriend, or Anthony, our one-year-old. She just kept saying, ‘You need to see this.’ I waited it out, watching her type it in, almost finding it, thinking this was it, concluding it wasn’t, remembering this morning when she first saw it, describing how great it was, and slowly revealing how little she remembered,” said you, 28. “Ultimately, I caught her wondering if she was confusing it with something she’d tried to send my brother, a dream she’d had, her 55th birthday, or something that happened as a kid. But mostly it was just silence with her scrolling through Facebook and intermittently muttering, ‘Where did it go? ”

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted that this exasperating experience was by design.

“Nancy is well known around the Facebook campus. She’s our ideal client because she follows the feed sequence so meticulously: the more she can’t find something, the more she scrolls, the more she opens, the more she buys,” said the controlling shareholder. “The reason she can’t find the video—it’s a squirrel feeding a baby rhino, by the way—is because the algorithm blocks posts she’s already seen in favor of pushing new content. The ad revenue Nancy generates alone has paid our light bill since 2019. Thank you, Nancy.”

At press time, your mom was trying to capture baby Anthony’s first steps on video, but she couldn’t get the camera to “turn around.”

More From The Hard Times:

Ten Underrated Albums From 1997 to Show Your Younger Cousin to Make You Seem Like Less of a Loser for Being Born in the 1900s

Report: Apathetic Middle Class Didn’t See Reason to Vote in 2024 Game Awards

BY Patrick Sullivan 

LOS ANGELES — A post-show poll from Reuters revealed that the middle class did not see any reason to vote in the 2024 Game Awards, with a majority claiming their vote would not have any effect on games policy for the upcoming term.

“I just didn’t see the point in voting this year. My vote doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things,” said Brenda Meijer, a previously dedicated Game Awards voter. “I live in Wisconsin, and I know my vote is valued at a fraction of a percent compared to some rich, upper-class, one-percenter games journalist working at IGN. A lot of people are disillusioned by it.”

The Game Awards claims to give power to people voting, but weighs the votes of individuals at a fraction of the value of certain elite publications, massively skewing the ballot towards people that actually know what the fuck they’re talking about.

“I don’t know, voting for me was tough this year. None of the candidates really spoke to me on every level,” said Pete Wensler, a Game Awards voter in Kansas. “All of these games are functionally the same anyway. There’s not going to be a big change for us no matter who I vote for. Call me a doomer, but if we haven’t gotten Master Chief in Smash by now, we’re never getting him.”

While The Game Awards does have a Player’s Voice category for the general populace, some feel that it’s not enough and that their opinion on ‘Sonic x Shadow Generations’ should influence every category.

“I think the popular vote is a dumb system,” said Geoff Keighley, host of The Game Awards. “The general public shouldn’t get the option to choose anything for themselves because the general public is on average too stupid to not vote in ‘Genshin Impact’ every year. If it were up to me, I’d choose each winner like the king on high that I am, but for now we’re settling with a system that at least pretends to be fair and balanced.”

UPDATE: As of Friday morning, “Astro Bot” has been elected Game of the Year, having attained the necessary 270 electoral votes despite only getting 30% of the popular vote.