A former RCMP officer turned content creator is getting laughs online with a new parody social media presence that imagines Burns Lake as the centre of absurd and improbable happenings.<\/p>\n
Brandon Marr, a 36-year-old who grew up and currently resides in Burns Lake, launched the “Mayor of Burns Lake” satire page on X in early July and on Facebook later that month. He posts from the perspective of a fictional mayor responding to fictional events around town.<\/p>\n
Marr, who retired from the RCMP in 2020 and now works in sales and marketing for The Local Connector, said in an interview that the parody page was born from a desire to inject some creative energy into small-town life.<\/p>\n
“Burns Lake is a place where not a lot of stuff happens. And as you can see, the news is talking about a Facebook page, so clearly, nothing really happens here,” he said with a laugh. “I just kind of had this idea of, like, what if it was a place where everything happened—good and bad?”<\/p>\n
The posts feature entirely fictional developments in the village, such as the construction of a nuclear power plant or downtown entertainment venues that don’t exist. Marr has also started building a cast of recurring fictional characters, including Harry, a site coordinator at the fictional nuclear plant.<\/p>\n
“I don’t want to make one based on anyone real," Marr said. "I just want everyone to come together and have a chuckle.”<\/p>\n
Marr said he isn't trying to fool anyone with his posts, which is why he ensured the accounts were clearly titled as parody accounts.<\/p>\n
“I want someone to feel like they’re in on the joke and they’re part of it,” he said. “I’m not necessarily trying to poke fun at any specific person. It’s more of just almost like an art project of absurdist humour.”<\/p>\n
Despite the screen name of the account, Marr said he isn't making any political commentary, noting that he is happy with the work that the actual mayor, council and Village staff do.<\/p>\n
“I love the idea of a small-town mayor feeling as though he has so much entitlement and so much say over what goes on in the town,” he said. “And it really is such a mirrored reverse image of what actually happens in the town.”<\/p>\n
Marr said he has received mostly positive feedback and encouragement in response to the accounts, including some messages of support and encouragement.<\/p>\n
Marr uses AI image generation tools to create the images for his posts.<\/p>\n
“It’s fun for me to see what the AI is going to come up with,” he said. “Sometimes it comes up and I burst out laughing because I can’t believe what it’s made.”<\/p>\n
Still, he’s cautious about relying too much on automation. He said creating intentionally absurd art to pair with his original satire ideas is a way of combating fully-AI-generated posts that are appearing on social media.<\/p>\n
“I almost feel like I’m walking a fine line by using the AI,” he said. “Part of why I’m doing this is almost a push back on AI and the AI-generated kind of slop content that we see.”<\/p>\n
Asked whether he plans to keep the page going long-term, Marr said he isn’t worried about running out of material.<\/p>\n
“My mind never stops—good or bad,” he said. “Maybe the posts will go down in quality, but they won’t stop, probably.”<\/p>\n
The Lakes District News <\/em>reached out to Henry Wiebe, the real mayor of Burns Lake, for comment, but did not receive a response by press deadline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “I just want everyone to come together and have a chuckle,\u201d says creator Brandon Marr<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":130,"featured_media":133640,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,7,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-133636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","category-news","category-top-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n