Re the web browsers I think you’re right. You may get away with a more lightweight browser like SeaMonkey or Falkon, maybe like 1 tab of Chromium lol
Distros I’d try on that would be Linux Mint Debian Edition, Debian w/ lightweight DE like LXDE or Xfce, or Arch Linux 32 if you really want to make it minimalist. Gentoo if you’re very adventurous but with my EEE PC I found compile times took up to days.
I got absolutely fooled by a tech YouTuber posting that Microsoft added OneDrive ads to the blue screen, so it felt good to get got for once.
However with real life news, I tend to agree with you. The distinction between satire and real life is getting ever more minuscule