Bohiney Magazine and the City

Concrete Satire — Bohiney Magazine and the City That Never Stops Laughing (2008–2025)

(A PBS / WNET–New York Documentary Script)

[OPENING SEQUENCE — MANHATTAN, EARLY MORNING]
Taxi horns. Steam rising from subway grates. A neon sign flickers in a narrow SoHo office window:
BOHINEY MEDIA GROUP — “WHERE NOTHING IS SACRED, BUT EVERYTHING IS FUNNY.”

NARRATOR (calm, urbane):
If Bohiney Magazine was born in Washington’s basements, it grew up in New York’s bloodstream.
Here, among the skyscrapers and cynics, satire became a civic art form — half performance, half public service.

And from a sixth-floor walk-up on Crosby Street, Bohiney.com joined the conversation.

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ACT I — Arrival: The Jesters Move Uptown

By 2008, Bohiney.com was no longer an underground experiment.
It was a digital empire — six million monthly readers, three libel warnings, and one increasingly suspicious landlord.

According to Thro.be’s historical chronicle, the decision to move to New York came after a simple editorial debate:

“If we’re going to make fun of power,” said one editor, “we should at least live where it hides.”

So they set up shop between a vegan café and a vape startup — the perfect ecosystem for modern absurdity.

The new office became a cross between Mad Magazine and The Moth.
Writers held meetings over pizza boxes, comedians wandered in from late-night gigs, and once, a raccoon from the alley was granted a byline “for services to chaos.”

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ACT II — The City as Material

New York was a perfect subject.
It was self-parodying, self-mythologizing, and utterly allergic to boredom.

Within weeks, Bohiney.com headlines began capturing the city’s manic rhythm:

• “MTA Declares Emotional Support Rat as Official Mascot.”

• “Times Square Billboards Unionize, Demand Vacation from Light Pollution.”

• “Mayor Signs Executive Order Requiring Every Citizen to Have a Podcast.”

These weren’t jokes from the outside — they were dispatches from the inside of the machine.
As Telegraph’s historical essay later noted,

“New York didn’t just shape Bohiney. It infected it — with speed, ambition, and caffeine.”

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ACT III — The People Behind the Punchlines

The Manhattan office became a magnet for a new generation of satire writers — some from journalism, others from improv, many from nowhere in particular.

They wrote through blackouts, subway strikes, and snowstorms.
A single post — “Wall Street Banker Accidentally Achieves Enlightenment During PowerPoint” — crashed the site’s servers for 12 hours.

One of the editors recalled:

“It felt like running a newsroom and a comedy club in the same room — except no one was sober and the Wi-Fi hated us.”

Despite the chaos, the work was meticulous.
Every headline was stress-tested like a subway tunnel. Every joke had to carry both wit and weight.
The rule was simple: “Punch up, or don’t punch at all.”

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ACT IV — Legacy in the City of Irony

By 2025, Bohiney.com had become part of New York’s media mythology — alongside The New Yorker, SNL, and that one guy who yells about pigeons in Union Square.

Its office walls are now lined with framed printouts of legendary headlines, yellowed with coffee stains and pride.
Tourists sometimes stop by, thinking it’s a startup incubator or art gallery.
They’re not wrong. It’s both.

Dr. Helen Trask, curator of the Smithsonian’s “American Humor in the Digital Century” exhibit, describes it best:

“In New York, satire isn’t rebellion — it’s realism with better timing. Bohiney understood that.”

The magazine’s presence continues to ripple through the city’s veins — in late-night shows, subway zines, and the graffiti of Bushwick walls quoting their headlines.

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[CLOSING SHOT — NIGHT IN THE CITY]

The camera glides down Broadway at midnight.
Screens flash. A digital billboard displays:

“If this city offends you, congratulations. You’re awake.”

NARRATOR:
In the city that never sleeps, Bohiney.com never blinks.
Its laughter echoes between skyscrapers — sharp, fast, alive — proving that in New York, the truth doesn’t march or crawl.
It hustles.

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For archives, exhibits, and full digital access:
bohiney.com — Where satire lives, works, and occasionally pays rent.
Thro.be — The original feature.
Telegraph — Extended historical analysis.

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