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this post was submitted on 16 May 2025
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The Onion
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The comment section saves me once again.
Always check the community under which it's posted. It's getting harder to spot the difference between theonion and nottheonion.
That's antithetical to satire.
What y'all experienced, in this headline, is The Onion fucking up. They picked a lie that's believable. Satire has to reach further than that, no matter how broken reality gets.
"Eating the onion" came from dipshits with zero media literacy believing the dumbest shit imaginable. Like "teenage girl to be tried as adult black man." If a bunch of reasonably savvy people have to check whether a satirical headline is real - that headline sucks. It has failed, as satire.
Comedy is selecting a lie your audience knows is not true. If half of them are going 'wait, really?' - revise.
Trouble is, no matter how ridiculous the scenario they dream up, current reality still makes it entirely believable.
People, I gave examples like three comments down.
Reality has been busily satirizing itself for a decade. The Onion tries to keep up but real life is so embedded into clown world now that things that were obvious satire a year ago are now believable.
We are at that point now. That point where you can't even make jokes anymore because there are no jokes stupider than what's actually happening.
Incorrect.
The Onion, of all sites, does not need anyone's excuses when they fumble a punchline. If people aren't sure you're joking - that's a bad joke.
I used to work with a guy that was like that. Older guy that was an agent finding me contract drafting work back in the 90s. I could never tell if he was serious or not. He'd say some real borderline shit, but eventually I realised, or just decided, that he was always joking, and reacted accordingly, usually by trying to extend the joke. Seeing The Onion header is enough to know it's a joke.
I suspect you just worked with an asshole who thought you were a fellow asshole.
If the only indication that something's a joke is who's saying it, that's like people defending Dave Chappelle's anti-trans bigotry, because 'he's a comedian.' Like what makes it funny or benign is that he was onstage for an audience. Ha ha.
If satire has to be labeled as satire, it is shite.
Nah mate. We're Australian. You wouldn't understand.
My guy, even you thought he crossed the line. You actively chose to believe it was banter. That does not guarantee it was.
I understand what it's like for bigots to look at you and assume you're on their side. It feels friendly. It's intended as friendly. It's still bigotry. They're telling jokes - but they're not joking.
I never said he said anything bigoted or offensive. It was so long ago that I can't even remember exactly the sort of thing he said, to be honest, but I seem to recall they were more weird than offensive.