Progressive Parody Stinks
The Onion was once America's premier political parody rag, now it's almost dead
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The Onion is a groundbreaking satirical news publication that has become an industry icon and leader in the satirical news space. Something akin to a published version of SNL’s Weekend News Update, The Onion can be credited with helping usher in the Daily Show era and the popularity of gleaning cultural opinion from stories that make fun of the culture.
As a young college graduate living in Chicago, I looked forward to a new Onion newspaper every Thursday. At the time they were free and could be found in nearly every coffee shop or newspaper street box. Few people would have described the parody publication as leftwing at the time. It was just funny. For decades it had no print rival and it was the standard for all other similar publications.
Now comes news The Onion is close to bankruptcy and ready to close up shop. An Onion writer recently took to social media to beg for donations to keep the struggling publication open and its writers working. It’s been a long fall from the height of their influence a mere 20 years ago.
So what happened?
Politics.
The Onion used to be an equal opportunity offender, but over the years has drifted further and further to the fringes with their comedy. Headlines were directed at progressive readers, and progressives are some of the most humorless people on earth. Satire is aimed at offending people by ridiculing ideas. The problem with progressive satire is that progressives don’t understand the ideas of the people they are supposedly satirizing. There must be a kernel of truth in a joke in order for it to be funny. Progressives don’t have any of the truth about their ideological opponents, only ideas and fantasies fueled by hastily written clickbait headlines. Their political beliefs aren’t the problem with their humor, it’s their ignorance. A cutting joke based on a made-up problem is only a joke in the writer’s mind. It can’t possibly translate to relatable humor.
The Onion has become a victim of its own staff, a staff that is in turn a victim of progressive culture. These are the same people who cheer on cancel culture, demand anyone right of center be deplatformed or prevented from speaking freely in public, and even believe certain public figures - like President Donald Trump - should not be heard or quoted directly in the public square. They’ve so isolated themselves from opposing opinions that they couldn’t possibly begin to parody those opinions. How can you parody something you can’t even hear?
And so The Onion necessarily drifted from humor and is now just a rag dedicated to progressive dad jokes. And so they are broke.
They say go woke go broke, but when you’re in the humor industry, it really is go woke, no jokes.
*A tale of two parodies…who wore it better?
I remember the days when the Onion was fun. If they were smart, they would have played off the Babylon Bee and complimented one another. But no. So TBB gave them their beer to hold.
I think some of their decline can also be attributed to their humor becoming outright mean-spirited. They've no qualms littering their headlines with f-bombs...the abject hate they hold in their hearts for anything outside leftist doctrine drips from every word. It isn't funny, it's just off-putting. Like reading a Keith Olbermann tweet.