10 Years of Shitfuckery
There are words no other word can replace. "Shitfuckery" is one of them. Giordano Nanni, Lucy and Luca use it in their videos without hesitation — and that's exactly the point.
They use it throughout their Honest Government Ads, practically without exception. Why? Well, these Juice Media videos report on political events for which hardly any other word would recommend itself quite so readily as shitfuckery.
Hold on — who are Giordano Nanni, Lucy and Luca? Probably not names that immediately conjure up a picture. At least not outside Australia. Certainly not in the wider public. But these short satire videos called “Honest Government Ads” give people plenty to talk about. Because they are pure satire with bite.
Giordano Nanni holds a doctorate in history, specialises in British colonialism — and is today the creator of “Honest Government Ads,” a channel that informs, rages and makes you laugh, all at once — and has been doing so for ten years.
The concept is disarmingly simple and, above all, convincing: government advertising — but honest. A smiling presenter, professional graphics, and then the text that politicians would never say. Climate greenwashing? Exposed. Billion-dollar submarine deals? Dissected.
What sets Giordano apart from academic experts: he reaches people. 815,000 subscribers on YouTube. Millions of views.
And when Greta Thunberg outs herself as a fan of Honest Government Ads and signs on as a podcast guest — no further argument is needed.
“Sometimes people say you’re my only news source,” says Giordano. “I don’t think that’s a good thing.” Rarely does someone with half a million followers say so openly: this isn’t enough to go on.
Ten years. No corporate budget, no newsroom, no PR team. Just a former professor, his partner as the voice, two actresses, and a script full of swearing — in the service of truth.
Giordano and his team threw me off completely about twenty years ago, right at the start of the pandemic. And left coffee stains on my shirt. That was when I saw the first Juice Media video I fell for. The title “Honest Government Ad” had made me curious — and for a brief moment I had genuinely believed it might be a real one. What’s more, an interview between Giordano, David Suzuki and his daughter Severn gave me a thought that has stayed with me ever since. The conversation was about climate change and why one particular village in British Columbia burned to the ground in the heat while the neighbouring community of Kanaka Bar was barely touched. Kanaka Bar is a small Indigenous community in British Columbia. The community is better prepared for climate change — with farms and gardens to strengthen food security, with its own renewable energy, and with self-collected environmental data to prepare as well as possible for what is coming. Severn remarked, with characteristic understatement: “We Westerners will end up on our knees, going to Indigenous peoples for help.”
The day before yesterday, Juice Media turned ten. Giordano Nanni and his team prove it: satire is not mere entertainment. It is education with conviction. And vice versa.