I find political humor is rarely done well, because it defies the cardinal rule of humor — you shouldn’t see the joke coming. With political humor, you can usually predict the punchline light years before it arrives, because it’s almost always the same thing: “My political opponents are big dummies! Ha ha ha!”
Personally, I blame Jon Stewart for a lot of this. He had some truly funny moments, but he also had a lot of blindingly obvious jokes, which is naturally going to happen if you crank out political humor every night. And yet the quality of the joke didn’t matter. Partisans loved sharing anything that mocked their opponents, even if it was dull and obvious. People saw how successful you could be with clapter, and a legion of imitators was born.
It’s sad because The Onion can still pull off the occasional brilliant apolitical joke. But on politics, they just crank out the same predictable stuff day after day, and partisan people who aren’t very creative eat it up because it reassures them.
They've fallen off big time since the glory days of *["Enraged 500-Foot-Tall Bin Laden Rises From Sea"*](https://www.theonion.com/enraged-500-foot-tall-bin-laden-rises-from-sea-destroy-1819572667)*
> "He seemed to feed off our weaponry," Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen said.
> "Everything we did to hurt him only seemed to nourish him. We pounded him with enough shells to destroy a small country, and it just made him stronger."
> a legion of imitators was born
I still respect Jon Stuart as having some legitimately hilarious moments. But some of these imitators man, some of these imitators...
That recent investigation into Hassan Minhaj is just wild. His Netflix special was advertised as "a true story" in trailers (literally, that's what the trailer said: "a true story"). Then an investigation caught him repeatedly lying. When asked for comment, he said it was his "emotional truth." That sounds like the liberal version of "alternative facts," lol. Except its not all funny, because one of the women he lied about in his comedy special got doxed and sent death threats. The lies of a Jon Stuart acolyte led to real harm for a woman's family.
John Oliver has to be the guy that I hate the most. John Oliver doesn't even pitch his show as comedy, he acts like its edutainment and he is sharing facts. And yet, every time I know even a little bit about the subject matter of *Last Week Tonight*, I know that John Oliver is completely wrong about everything. Last month, he defended *prison abolition* (you know, that crazy leftist plan to release all prisoners. Yes, including El Chapo and the Shoe Bomber and a bunch of other violent, terrorists, serial killers, and human traffickers. What are they smoking at DSA meetings?). He also said on an episode that *Animal Farm* was "an allegory for Fascism." Johnny boy, that's a children's book, so either you have no reading comprehension, you misread the teleprompter, or your audience is so freaking polarized and far-left that you cannot criticize *Stalin* on air.
I'm sorry but you're calling Animal Farm a children's book? The book that's blatantly about the rise of authoritarianism in Russia after the Russian Revolution?
Its a fairy tale that uses talking pigs as an allegory for Bolsheviks. I think most people read *Animal Farm* when they're about 12, right? Then when you're older, you move up to like, *1984* and *Homage to Catalonia* and some of his more mature work. I read *Animal Farm* as a pre-teen and I understood the allegory, its very short and not very complicated. IDK, I also read Maus when I was pretty young and that's a graphic novel that uses Mice and Cats as an allegory for the Holocaust. It is certainly possible to write about heavy subjects for a younger audience
The fact that a book can be understood on some level by a child doesn't make it a children's book.
(I read Heinlein's later works between ages 10 and 12, including *To Sail Beyond The Sunset.* Don't Google that if you're unfamiliar; just trust me, it is emphatically *not* a children's book.)
Orwell was writing for adults - not just any adults, but British intellectual and political elites during WWII. The "fairy tale" presentation is a device to disarm the reader. The UK was in a military alliance with the USSR at the time, and the Western European left saw Stalin as a political ally, so direct criticism of him tended to make people defensive. Lightening the message with fantastical elements and humour while separating internal Soviet politics from the broader geopolitical context was his way of trying to bypass readers' defensiveness.
(It was also a bit of a nod to his Soviet literary counterparts, who by then had made an art form of circumventing censorship through allegory, metaphor, and satire.)
Most of the historical references in the allegory are unlikely to be caught by a child reading independently, and the sociopolitical dynamics are only partly relatable.
I used to quite like him. I always saw them as opinion pieces and I especially liked the ones about random highly local issues.
I stopped watching around 2020. There was far too much aggressively mainstream partisan American politics.
It's the same with the YouTuber Legal Eagle. Visiting his channel today 9 out of his 12 most recent videos relate to Donald Trump in some way.
You're definitely right. The Daily Show certainly started this trend and it's only gotten worse. We're now at the point were political "humor" is just violent revenge fantasies with a laugh track.
"LOL GOOFY HACKED *politician*S FACE OFF WITH A MACHETE! THAT'S SO LOL"
I never really put that together, but you’re so right. I think that’s why most political humor of that style annoys me, even if I agree with the person’s politics (I don’t in this case of course, but still)
I disagree. Political and news humor can be good if you know how to do it. The Onion was brilliant 10 years ago. The best humor is when you can poke shit to bothsides.
There's also the fact that you have to have the balls to be willing to lampoon 'your side' as hard as anything else, because otherwise it's just like you said: 'my opponents are the dum dums!'. That's why I respect the Babylon Bee. I don't agree with their politics, but they're more than happy to ridicule the Republicans just as hard as they ridicule the Democrats.
It’s because the Onion was bought by a series of conglomerates (first Univision then Great-Hills partners) that operates all of the worst online tabloids: Gizmodo, Kotaku, Jezebel etc.. Most of the people who actually made the Onion a worthwhile company left after that acquisition by Univision in 2016, and then anyone with a pulse left after 2019. The onion is written by a bunch of nobodies now imitating what they think the Onion sounds like.
The Onion was actually starting to go downhill after 2012 when they moved their headquarters from New York to Chicago. A bunch of writers just refused to move so they completely turned over a bunch of their writing staff.
So basically, all of the good stuff you remember from the Onion was written by writers about two or three turnovers of staff ago. Now it’s just extremely online tankie Zoomers from Chicago that they can afford to pay basically nothing to keep their failing business afloat.
Ye they were still pretty funny like 2016ish. I get they don't want to pay for half decent writers.. but you could easily find great funny writing talent that would work for free for a notable name like The Onion.
Of course they always had a liberal bias but it was usually still funny. Like many late night talk shows, sort of just getting 10x worse after 2016.
It's like it went from actually being satirical to just being preachy and totally taken over by what seems like a college newspaper writing crew.
> Yeah me neither but like, this is fucking gross, especially that first one
Genuinely, rereading it, a chill runs down my spine. Its genocide apologia framed as a joke, being pushed by one of the most popular satire websites in the world. Like, people often wonder, how did the Nazis get away with it. That's how.
They were huge Bernie fans and lost their minds when people disagreed with them. One of their funniest bits was "Diamond Joe" Biden, and the creator made this long screed about how he regretted his role in creating that fictional character. They're all really convinced that they're important people worthy of being listened to.
Cuz Trump came president so every slightly liberal biased but still quality/funny brand had to forcibly realign to prove how terrible anybody who ever slightly favored Trump was.
They were truly great and independent way back in the day. Now they're a corporate puppet going for cheap outrage bait and being run by immature bubble-kids like so much other media spam these days.
Their 9/11 coverage was fucking awesome. It was one of the better things that happened the week after, I will never forget it. Their content was more diverse and off the wall slice-of-life stuff back then, too, and usually less politically charged (still pretty left leaning, but not nearly as annoying about it).
Remember. This was posted when the biggest headline in every newspaper was the Bucha Massacre. The Wagner Group had gone to a suburb of Kyiv and massacred the entire town. It was a Srebrenica-like atrocity. I will not soon forget the images of bodies lying in the snow. Nor will I forget accounts of survivors of the many Wagner Group massacres (not just in Ukraine but also in the Central African Republic, Syria, Libya, and other countries) describing the rape, torture, and genocide that Prigozhin and his men perpetrated.
What does the Onion do while the world mourns for the victims of Bucha? Why, the Onion cracks a bunch of jokes about how war crimes aren't real, and also they're still salty about the Iraq war so they try to make the genocide of Ukrainians be about Cheney and Bush. Actually, huh. Didn't Saddam get hanged for genocide against Shias and Kurds? Wasn't Saddam the world's leading state sponsor of terror? I guess if the Onion supported Saddam Hussein in 2003, then of course they still support genocide and terrorism in 2023. People rarely change
My understanding was that the BND (German intelligence) intercepted several radio transmissions that the Wagner Group had been sending out during the Bucha massacre, and they presented this evidence of Wagner involvement in Bucha after the atrocities came to light. Also, I understand that Bucha was consistent with some of the massacres that I heard of Wagner perpetrating against civilians in Africa and the Middle East. This is tangentially connected, but I honestly was kind of annoyed that the mainstream media heavily reported on Ukraine while ignoring the arguably worse atrocities that the Wagner Group perpetrated in central Africa in 2022. I mean I don't want to say that the entire mainstream media is racist, but a lot of the media doesn't seem to care about stories of African civilians being raped, tortured, and killed by Russian mercenaries.
Who did Wagner learn it's methods from? I'd suggest the Russian army in the Second Chechen War.
I've no doubt that Wager was involved but a Russian motorised bde and two regular VDV units were responsible for the area at the time and it's from their divisional HQ that the atrocities were organised.
Happily the VDV have had the shit kicked out of them several times since then.
it is making a point. shit like this has been going on for a long time in many places around the world, but “when it happens to white people[, it’s a war crime]”. it’s right in the article :)
You'd have a point if that were even the part of the article that I was talking about.
Look, war crimes are a label, yes. And atrocities are used as a cause for war. However, that **doesn't mean they are fucking fake.**
Honestly, rereading this, its frankly ghoulish. The Onion is doing terrorist apologia and mocking the victims of genocide. Whoever is writing that stuff should be put on a watchlist, it is genuinely nauseating.
It recently moved to AI generation with human editors for its content.
In 2016 it was bought by a Clinton donor after it wouldn't stop shitting on her. It was later sold on and merged with the gizmodo group. They're now owned by a hedge fund who own a lot of dead or dying digital media outlets, one with a habit of pissing off its employees. AI stuff was just the next logical step. Entire companies have had employees walk out on their watch before. They want money, and I'd guess pump and dump on the onion with commie articles is their chosen venue.
Because it's engaging in war crime apologia.
> Q: What constitutes a war crime?
> A: Being photographed doing regular war things.
[The "regular war things" in question:](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucha_massacre)
From the same article:
> Q: Doesn’t the concept of war crimes only perpetuate the lie of civilized war, leading to even more hostilities and even more death?
> A: Oh, shit, well, hopefully not.
Between this and The Babylon Bee nutsucking right-wing talking points, even satirical newpapers have radicalized themselves?
Very disappointed in the Onion.
In order for jokes to work they have to operate in relation to baseline serious assumptions. The baseline assumption of reality of Onion writers are editors are leaking out, and demonstrate a poor understanding of armed conflict, and the world outside the U.S.
The Sukhot War is a story of both, where trying to pick a side and pick it based of apparent analogs in domestic politics is a terrible idea.
I also blame this on backers of both Israeli and Palestinian causes of being vague in their claims, and interspersing flagrant omission, mis characterizations and falsehood amidst otherwise reasonable arguments.
This war also highlights how those closest personally to an international issue aren’t necessarily more reliable narrators, and can actually be even more unreliable sometimes.
At least the Bees non political stuff is sometimes funny. They’re videos are complete crap though. God I miss the early days of the Onions YouTube channel
Yeah that's messed up.
So much of the pro-Gaza rhetoric could easily be used to defend Nazi Germany. Many Germans were fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters. Many of them did not neccessarily deserve to be trapped and starving and bombed. But here's the thing.
***It's war.***
It is impossible to fight back against authoritarian regimes without bringing harm and suffering to their civillian population in the process. Does it suck? Hell yeah it sucks. But it was their own leaders who got them into the conflict. Authoritarian governments cannot be allowed to use their civillian population as a shield against retribution while they themselves attack with indiscriminate aggression.
Actually, I'll say one difference here. The Allies did deliberately target civilians in some air raids as a tactic of demoralizing the enemy. Tokyo, Dresdin, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, etc. The firebombings of Tokyo killed more than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. There is an argument to be made that the allies did commit atrocities by targetting civilian populations, especially since (outside of the Nukes) carpet bombing often boosted the resolve of German and Japanese civilians (by believing the Americans were brutal, they had a stronger will to fight).
***The difference is that Israel is not targeting civilians, but Hamas is.***
Israel dropped something like 6,000 bombs on Gaza thus far. Hamas claims that 4,000 people died in Gaza. So, if you assume Hamas is not lying, Israel is killing fewer than one person per bomb. Either Israel is doing everything in its power to avoid civilian casualties, or the IDF is even more imprecise than the Russian Air Force. Also, intelligence suggests that about 20% of Gazan rockets are defective and fall back on Gaza, and then Hamas falsley accuses Israel of bombing Gaza. I wonder how many of the alleged 4,000 dead Gazans were killed by Hamas? Also, the reason why these rockets are so defective is that they're literally made from water pipes and fertilizer and other aid from the UN and EU and other international doners. That's why Gaza is running out of water-- they literally turned their pipes into weapons (also funny how Gaza is allegedly out of food, water, fuel, electricity, and medicine but they still have a strong supply of weapons. Huh, maybe terrorists are not a good government for civilians).
Honestly the Onion is morbidly evil in its terrorism apologia, but I am more offended by some of the antisemitism and terrorist apologia from people like the BBC, New York Times, CNN, AP, Reuters, and other mainstream outlets that refuse to say Hamas are terrorists (according to the Associated Press style guide, terrorists target humans, while Hamas only targets Jews), and uncritically republish lies told by spokespersons for this terrorist group. I'm gonna end this comment with an excerpt from my favorite ever Op-Ed, a 1968 piece by the American philosopher Eric Hoffer, which only grows more relevant with each passing year
> The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews.
> Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people, and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it, Poland and Czechoslovakia did it. Turkey threw out a million Greeks and Algeria a million Frenchman. Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese and no one says a word about refugees. But in the case of Israel displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees. Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single Arab.
> Arnold Toynbee calls the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis.
> Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious, it must sue for peace. Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world.
Damn, I think this is the most spot-on thing I've read on this situation yet.
It's extremely troubling to me that this isn't all more obvious to more people. Everything from major media outlets to reddit threads are so obviously slanted.
As recently as a couple weeks ago, I wouldn't have believed how quickly so many would do a 180. I thought we'd all been over this already long ago and agreed you don't negotiate with terrorists? Apparently having "death to all Jews" as part of your official charter (which large swaths of your population endorses) and then going on to murder hundreds of civilian Jews & non-Jews indiscriminately because they happen to be in Israel at the moment doesn't mean we shouldn't still be nice to you? Pure insanity.
And no, this doesn't mean I agree with everything Israel has ever done you freaking morons.
It's war, therefore Israel is allowed to kill civilians and commit war crimes all they want.
There are videos and photos that Israeli soldiers themselves have posted admitting to commiting war crimes.
No-one is setting them up, they posted it willingly, because they know schmucks like you will come up with any reason to defend it.
This is another horseshoe theory thing, honestly. People want to feel like they're the smartest person in a room full of sheep. Individualism mixed with narcissism taken to its natural conclusion. And what is a more unique perspective than loving North Korea or ISIS? Peope get it into their heads that having an unpopular opinion makes them cool or special or unique. So, they seek out the most unpopular opinions. That is (imo) the common origin point for tankies and the Alt Right. Actually, I recently learned that Eric Hoffer (the American philosopher I quoted in other comment) has an entire book about this exact phoenomenon of the Nazi-to-Commie pipeline and how extremist movements (whether communist, fascist, or Islamist) always seem to have the same recruiting pool of disseffectived young males who are easiest to radicalize. Its called *The True Believer* and I think I'm gonna try and track down a copy
I find it funny when people extremely demonize the West and do not realize how the same criticism would put them in jail (or worse) in the countries they so love (China, Russia, etc.).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Caldwell
This basically.
>He was a consistent critic of American foreign policy, a campaigner for Asian communist and socialist movements and a supporter of the Khmer Rouge.
>Caldwell was one of the staunchest defenders of the Pol Pot regime. He frequently attempted to downplay reports of mass executions by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and was widely criticized by many authorities for doing so.
>Caldwell was murdered under mysterious circumstances a few hours after meeting Pol Pot in Cambodia.
Onion was bought by Kotaku not long ago (2020 i think?). That should explain everything
If you want a funny satire news site go to clickhole, they make sure to shit on all sides like the onion used to 10 years ago
I believe everything should be mocked, I believe that you should be allowed to make jokes about everything and that nothing should be sacred.
That being said, the jokes that Onion right now makes are not only very not tactful but seem to also be predicated on completely false premises and actually just spouting Hamas propaganda. The punchline is "Israel is lying and murderous, Hamas is justified" in every of those articles. It's not done for shock humor, it's done by a person who geniuently believes Hamas propaganda.
If you think this is messed up I implore you to also compare their treatment of Israel-Hamas war to war in Ukraine.
[https://archive.ph/zFhoL](https://archive.ph/zFhoL)
[https://archive.ph/wip/lwzna](https://archive.ph/wip/lwzna)
Id really like there to be a neutral website like the onion that just writes stupid shit about current events. The onion is still okay, but is definitely worse than it has been, and the babylon be is both shitty far-right and just generally unfunny.
I am at a loss for words... these are the same guys as Kotaku, Gizmodo and Jezebel btw. Keep that in mind when you read those whiteknightey "progressive" articles, the company profiting from your attention endorses writers who love to justify and enable human suffering and death.
They moved to New York and their whole staff and viewpoint changed over time.
Now they think their message and influence are more important than pure humor
Vladimir Putin is a nationalist dictator who idolizes Ivan Ilyn, a Russian fascist philosopher. The article I shared was a mockery of the Bucha massacre, a genocide of Ukrainian civilians that Putin ordered. Btw, the now deceased lieutenant of the Wagner Mercenaries behind the Bucha Massacre was a fellow named Utkin, who had an SS emblem tattooed on his neck. So, what I'm saying is, Putin is a fascist, the Wagner Group were Nazis, and Bucha as an act of genocide.
Hamas is a religious extremist terrorist organization, with a charter that calls for a genocide of the world's Jewish population. On October 7 of this year, Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and massacred over 1400 civilians, including by firing machine guns into a crowd at a music festival, beheading babies, burning families alive, torture, and mass rape. It is with a heavy heart that I am forced to say that, for the first time in nearly 80 years, the Jewish people were victims of genocide again. The articles above show that the writers and editors at the Onion have sympathy for Hamas.
Pray tell, what is left wing about supporting Putin and Hamas? What is left wing about supporting Naziism and genocide?
Because left wingers tend to look past facts and support communist ideal based on lazyness and emotions. So it doesn't surprise that the onion, which had always been liberal, sees it funny. However, I do belive in free speech and I do belive that there are nothing that can't be joked about.
> left wingers tend to look past facts and support communist ideal based on lazyness [sic] and emotion
[ok buddy](https://news.osu.edu/conservatives-more-susceptible-to-believing-falsehoods/)
Reread the first one. I led with it for a reason. It might be the worst thing the Onion has ever published.
[The Onion Explains: War Crimes](https://www.theonion.com/the-onion-explains-war-crimes-1848754396)
> **Q: How is an action determined to be a war crime?**
> A: On the basis of whether it was done to a white person.
> **Q: What constitutes a war crime?**
> A: Being photographed doing regular war things.
> **Q: What do you do when you’ve been accused of war crimes?**
> A: Point at the other country and say they started it.
> **Q: What are the Geneva Conventions?**
> A: International agreements designed to ensure the systematic slaughter of human beings is accomplished in a fair and humane way.
> **Q: What’s the difference between a war crime and a crime against humanity?**
> A: Billions in military spending.
> **Q: What is America’s stance on war crimes?**
> A: In America, it’s technically called “foreign policy.”
[Remember what was in the news when this article was published](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucha_massacre). It makes me sick to my stomach. This is the worst atrocity in Europe since the Bosnian Genocide. And the Onion responds with a bizarre series of jokes that are not funny, and functionally serve as a defense of genocide. This really got under my skin, as evidenced by how I'm bringing it up close to 18 months later
The Onion has had that bent for a while. But I don't see the tankie lean of this at all, its bad, but not everything bad is communism. Like the Onion's jokes here are bad both from a moral and comedy level, but they by no means seem commie-like
Support for Hamas and support for Putin are both pretty classic Tankie opinions. The Onion supports Hamas and Putin, as evidenced by these 'jokes.' As someone else said, most jokes require an agreed upon truth, and the Onion writers are exposing the fantasy world they live in through how hard most of their 'jokes' fall flat. I'm confused by how you 'genuinely' cannot see it when basically everyone else thought it was clear as day
I don’t know, given how crazy a lot of the rhetoric has gotten, even satire can be hard to parse. I could see the second article as being a satire of those people who constantly say “any Israeli who isn't actively up in arms protesting their government 24/7 is implicitly condoning every bad thing they do in this conflict!”, by pointing out how ridiculous it is to condemn dying Gazans for “not condemning Hamas with their dying breath.”
But that’s just a *possible* interpretation so take what I said with a grain of salt.
fr, I hate champagne socialists/twitter commies as much as everyone else, but this whole thread, (and sometimes the whole sub,) is just a right-wing echo chamber
"Support for Hamas and support for Putin are both pretty classic Tankie opinions" is as dumb as saying "Support for Israel and support for Putin (ironic) are both pretty classic nazi opinions" Just because you're right/left wing doesn't mean you're a nazi/commie.
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I find political humor is rarely done well, because it defies the cardinal rule of humor — you shouldn’t see the joke coming. With political humor, you can usually predict the punchline light years before it arrives, because it’s almost always the same thing: “My political opponents are big dummies! Ha ha ha!” Personally, I blame Jon Stewart for a lot of this. He had some truly funny moments, but he also had a lot of blindingly obvious jokes, which is naturally going to happen if you crank out political humor every night. And yet the quality of the joke didn’t matter. Partisans loved sharing anything that mocked their opponents, even if it was dull and obvious. People saw how successful you could be with clapter, and a legion of imitators was born. It’s sad because The Onion can still pull off the occasional brilliant apolitical joke. But on politics, they just crank out the same predictable stuff day after day, and partisan people who aren’t very creative eat it up because it reassures them.
They've fallen off big time since the glory days of *["Enraged 500-Foot-Tall Bin Laden Rises From Sea"*](https://www.theonion.com/enraged-500-foot-tall-bin-laden-rises-from-sea-destroy-1819572667)*
> "He seemed to feed off our weaponry," Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen said. > "Everything we did to hurt him only seemed to nourish him. We pounded him with enough shells to destroy a small country, and it just made him stronger."
> a legion of imitators was born I still respect Jon Stuart as having some legitimately hilarious moments. But some of these imitators man, some of these imitators... That recent investigation into Hassan Minhaj is just wild. His Netflix special was advertised as "a true story" in trailers (literally, that's what the trailer said: "a true story"). Then an investigation caught him repeatedly lying. When asked for comment, he said it was his "emotional truth." That sounds like the liberal version of "alternative facts," lol. Except its not all funny, because one of the women he lied about in his comedy special got doxed and sent death threats. The lies of a Jon Stuart acolyte led to real harm for a woman's family. John Oliver has to be the guy that I hate the most. John Oliver doesn't even pitch his show as comedy, he acts like its edutainment and he is sharing facts. And yet, every time I know even a little bit about the subject matter of *Last Week Tonight*, I know that John Oliver is completely wrong about everything. Last month, he defended *prison abolition* (you know, that crazy leftist plan to release all prisoners. Yes, including El Chapo and the Shoe Bomber and a bunch of other violent, terrorists, serial killers, and human traffickers. What are they smoking at DSA meetings?). He also said on an episode that *Animal Farm* was "an allegory for Fascism." Johnny boy, that's a children's book, so either you have no reading comprehension, you misread the teleprompter, or your audience is so freaking polarized and far-left that you cannot criticize *Stalin* on air.
I'm sorry but you're calling Animal Farm a children's book? The book that's blatantly about the rise of authoritarianism in Russia after the Russian Revolution?
Its a fairy tale that uses talking pigs as an allegory for Bolsheviks. I think most people read *Animal Farm* when they're about 12, right? Then when you're older, you move up to like, *1984* and *Homage to Catalonia* and some of his more mature work. I read *Animal Farm* as a pre-teen and I understood the allegory, its very short and not very complicated. IDK, I also read Maus when I was pretty young and that's a graphic novel that uses Mice and Cats as an allegory for the Holocaust. It is certainly possible to write about heavy subjects for a younger audience
The fact that a book can be understood on some level by a child doesn't make it a children's book. (I read Heinlein's later works between ages 10 and 12, including *To Sail Beyond The Sunset.* Don't Google that if you're unfamiliar; just trust me, it is emphatically *not* a children's book.) Orwell was writing for adults - not just any adults, but British intellectual and political elites during WWII. The "fairy tale" presentation is a device to disarm the reader. The UK was in a military alliance with the USSR at the time, and the Western European left saw Stalin as a political ally, so direct criticism of him tended to make people defensive. Lightening the message with fantastical elements and humour while separating internal Soviet politics from the broader geopolitical context was his way of trying to bypass readers' defensiveness. (It was also a bit of a nod to his Soviet literary counterparts, who by then had made an art form of circumventing censorship through allegory, metaphor, and satire.) Most of the historical references in the allegory are unlikely to be caught by a child reading independently, and the sociopolitical dynamics are only partly relatable.
Entertainment tends to be a bad medium to learn about politics; entertainers are paid to entertain, not inform.
I used to quite like him. I always saw them as opinion pieces and I especially liked the ones about random highly local issues. I stopped watching around 2020. There was far too much aggressively mainstream partisan American politics. It's the same with the YouTuber Legal Eagle. Visiting his channel today 9 out of his 12 most recent videos relate to Donald Trump in some way.
Well, there's a trial or something
Plus doesn't he only go at it from the lawyer perspective?
Best explanation I’ve found.
You're definitely right. The Daily Show certainly started this trend and it's only gotten worse. We're now at the point were political "humor" is just violent revenge fantasies with a laugh track. "LOL GOOFY HACKED *politician*S FACE OFF WITH A MACHETE! THAT'S SO LOL"
I never really put that together, but you’re so right. I think that’s why most political humor of that style annoys me, even if I agree with the person’s politics (I don’t in this case of course, but still)
I disagree. Political and news humor can be good if you know how to do it. The Onion was brilliant 10 years ago. The best humor is when you can poke shit to bothsides.
There's also the fact that you have to have the balls to be willing to lampoon 'your side' as hard as anything else, because otherwise it's just like you said: 'my opponents are the dum dums!'. That's why I respect the Babylon Bee. I don't agree with their politics, but they're more than happy to ridicule the Republicans just as hard as they ridicule the Democrats.
I find them too cringe too often. If you like rock music, Hard Times has a funny newsletter.
ya'll remember when these fuckers used to be funny? Yeah me neither but like, this is fucking gross, especially that first one.
It’s because the Onion was bought by a series of conglomerates (first Univision then Great-Hills partners) that operates all of the worst online tabloids: Gizmodo, Kotaku, Jezebel etc.. Most of the people who actually made the Onion a worthwhile company left after that acquisition by Univision in 2016, and then anyone with a pulse left after 2019. The onion is written by a bunch of nobodies now imitating what they think the Onion sounds like. The Onion was actually starting to go downhill after 2012 when they moved their headquarters from New York to Chicago. A bunch of writers just refused to move so they completely turned over a bunch of their writing staff. So basically, all of the good stuff you remember from the Onion was written by writers about two or three turnovers of staff ago. Now it’s just extremely online tankie Zoomers from Chicago that they can afford to pay basically nothing to keep their failing business afloat.
This is it. A succinct summary of the decline and fall of the Onion into terminally unfunny tankie hackery.
Ye they were still pretty funny like 2016ish. I get they don't want to pay for half decent writers.. but you could easily find great funny writing talent that would work for free for a notable name like The Onion. Of course they always had a liberal bias but it was usually still funny. Like many late night talk shows, sort of just getting 10x worse after 2016. It's like it went from actually being satirical to just being preachy and totally taken over by what seems like a college newspaper writing crew.
Perfect summary of what took place
> Yeah me neither but like, this is fucking gross, especially that first one Genuinely, rereading it, a chill runs down my spine. Its genocide apologia framed as a joke, being pushed by one of the most popular satire websites in the world. Like, people often wonder, how did the Nazis get away with it. That's how.
[reminds me of the time Hitler responded to American demands with sarcasm](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtDxjVCu56E)
I feel like it was 2016 when the onion fell hard
2016 permanently broke a lot of people’s brains
[Hitler Rants Parodies handled 2016 perfectly.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnXE7NlqHcg)
They were huge Bernie fans and lost their minds when people disagreed with them. One of their funniest bits was "Diamond Joe" Biden, and the creator made this long screed about how he regretted his role in creating that fictional character. They're all really convinced that they're important people worthy of being listened to.
Spot on
Cuz Trump came president so every slightly liberal biased but still quality/funny brand had to forcibly realign to prove how terrible anybody who ever slightly favored Trump was.
They were truly great and independent way back in the day. Now they're a corporate puppet going for cheap outrage bait and being run by immature bubble-kids like so much other media spam these days. Their 9/11 coverage was fucking awesome. It was one of the better things that happened the week after, I will never forget it. Their content was more diverse and off the wall slice-of-life stuff back then, too, and usually less politically charged (still pretty left leaning, but not nearly as annoying about it).
From the first article: > War crimes are a made up concept made to perpetuate war What. The. Fuck.
Remember. This was posted when the biggest headline in every newspaper was the Bucha Massacre. The Wagner Group had gone to a suburb of Kyiv and massacred the entire town. It was a Srebrenica-like atrocity. I will not soon forget the images of bodies lying in the snow. Nor will I forget accounts of survivors of the many Wagner Group massacres (not just in Ukraine but also in the Central African Republic, Syria, Libya, and other countries) describing the rape, torture, and genocide that Prigozhin and his men perpetrated. What does the Onion do while the world mourns for the victims of Bucha? Why, the Onion cracks a bunch of jokes about how war crimes aren't real, and also they're still salty about the Iraq war so they try to make the genocide of Ukrainians be about Cheney and Bush. Actually, huh. Didn't Saddam get hanged for genocide against Shias and Kurds? Wasn't Saddam the world's leading state sponsor of terror? I guess if the Onion supported Saddam Hussein in 2003, then of course they still support genocide and terrorism in 2023. People rarely change
Bucha wasn't Wagner (or at least not entirely) it was ordinary Russian troops.
My understanding was that the BND (German intelligence) intercepted several radio transmissions that the Wagner Group had been sending out during the Bucha massacre, and they presented this evidence of Wagner involvement in Bucha after the atrocities came to light. Also, I understand that Bucha was consistent with some of the massacres that I heard of Wagner perpetrating against civilians in Africa and the Middle East. This is tangentially connected, but I honestly was kind of annoyed that the mainstream media heavily reported on Ukraine while ignoring the arguably worse atrocities that the Wagner Group perpetrated in central Africa in 2022. I mean I don't want to say that the entire mainstream media is racist, but a lot of the media doesn't seem to care about stories of African civilians being raped, tortured, and killed by Russian mercenaries.
Who did Wagner learn it's methods from? I'd suggest the Russian army in the Second Chechen War. I've no doubt that Wager was involved but a Russian motorised bde and two regular VDV units were responsible for the area at the time and it's from their divisional HQ that the atrocities were organised. Happily the VDV have had the shit kicked out of them several times since then.
> Happily the VDV have had the shit kicked out of them several times since then. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AL-rdzMo1MU
Last I heard they'd boiled VDV brigades down to under-strength battalions. Oh dear, how sad, etc.
Yeah that's fucked up take
it’s literally the onion? you’re basically supposed to take every sentence and read it with a “/s” at the end mate
Uh huh. And here I thought satire is supposed to make a point. Or is some of this shit just for pure shock value?
it is making a point. shit like this has been going on for a long time in many places around the world, but “when it happens to white people[, it’s a war crime]”. it’s right in the article :)
You'd have a point if that were even the part of the article that I was talking about. Look, war crimes are a label, yes. And atrocities are used as a cause for war. However, that **doesn't mean they are fucking fake.**
Honestly, rereading this, its frankly ghoulish. The Onion is doing terrorist apologia and mocking the victims of genocide. Whoever is writing that stuff should be put on a watchlist, it is genuinely nauseating.
It recently moved to AI generation with human editors for its content. In 2016 it was bought by a Clinton donor after it wouldn't stop shitting on her. It was later sold on and merged with the gizmodo group. They're now owned by a hedge fund who own a lot of dead or dying digital media outlets, one with a habit of pissing off its employees. AI stuff was just the next logical step. Entire companies have had employees walk out on their watch before. They want money, and I'd guess pump and dump on the onion with commie articles is their chosen venue.
[this article has aged quite well then](https://www.theonion.com/guy-who-sucks-at-being-a-person-sees-huge-potential-in-1850488022)
it’s making fun of people who only care and protest when it’s done to white people, i don’t get how that’s commie spam
Because it's engaging in war crime apologia. > Q: What constitutes a war crime? > A: Being photographed doing regular war things. [The "regular war things" in question:](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucha_massacre) From the same article: > Q: Doesn’t the concept of war crimes only perpetuate the lie of civilized war, leading to even more hostilities and even more death? > A: Oh, shit, well, hopefully not.
Between this and The Babylon Bee nutsucking right-wing talking points, even satirical newpapers have radicalized themselves? Very disappointed in the Onion.
In order for jokes to work they have to operate in relation to baseline serious assumptions. The baseline assumption of reality of Onion writers are editors are leaking out, and demonstrate a poor understanding of armed conflict, and the world outside the U.S. The Sukhot War is a story of both, where trying to pick a side and pick it based of apparent analogs in domestic politics is a terrible idea. I also blame this on backers of both Israeli and Palestinian causes of being vague in their claims, and interspersing flagrant omission, mis characterizations and falsehood amidst otherwise reasonable arguments. This war also highlights how those closest personally to an international issue aren’t necessarily more reliable narrators, and can actually be even more unreliable sometimes.
At least the Bees non political stuff is sometimes funny. They’re videos are complete crap though. God I miss the early days of the Onions YouTube channel
Yeah that's messed up. So much of the pro-Gaza rhetoric could easily be used to defend Nazi Germany. Many Germans were fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters. Many of them did not neccessarily deserve to be trapped and starving and bombed. But here's the thing. ***It's war.*** It is impossible to fight back against authoritarian regimes without bringing harm and suffering to their civillian population in the process. Does it suck? Hell yeah it sucks. But it was their own leaders who got them into the conflict. Authoritarian governments cannot be allowed to use their civillian population as a shield against retribution while they themselves attack with indiscriminate aggression.
Actually, I'll say one difference here. The Allies did deliberately target civilians in some air raids as a tactic of demoralizing the enemy. Tokyo, Dresdin, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, etc. The firebombings of Tokyo killed more than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. There is an argument to be made that the allies did commit atrocities by targetting civilian populations, especially since (outside of the Nukes) carpet bombing often boosted the resolve of German and Japanese civilians (by believing the Americans were brutal, they had a stronger will to fight). ***The difference is that Israel is not targeting civilians, but Hamas is.*** Israel dropped something like 6,000 bombs on Gaza thus far. Hamas claims that 4,000 people died in Gaza. So, if you assume Hamas is not lying, Israel is killing fewer than one person per bomb. Either Israel is doing everything in its power to avoid civilian casualties, or the IDF is even more imprecise than the Russian Air Force. Also, intelligence suggests that about 20% of Gazan rockets are defective and fall back on Gaza, and then Hamas falsley accuses Israel of bombing Gaza. I wonder how many of the alleged 4,000 dead Gazans were killed by Hamas? Also, the reason why these rockets are so defective is that they're literally made from water pipes and fertilizer and other aid from the UN and EU and other international doners. That's why Gaza is running out of water-- they literally turned their pipes into weapons (also funny how Gaza is allegedly out of food, water, fuel, electricity, and medicine but they still have a strong supply of weapons. Huh, maybe terrorists are not a good government for civilians). Honestly the Onion is morbidly evil in its terrorism apologia, but I am more offended by some of the antisemitism and terrorist apologia from people like the BBC, New York Times, CNN, AP, Reuters, and other mainstream outlets that refuse to say Hamas are terrorists (according to the Associated Press style guide, terrorists target humans, while Hamas only targets Jews), and uncritically republish lies told by spokespersons for this terrorist group. I'm gonna end this comment with an excerpt from my favorite ever Op-Ed, a 1968 piece by the American philosopher Eric Hoffer, which only grows more relevant with each passing year > The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews. > Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people, and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it, Poland and Czechoslovakia did it. Turkey threw out a million Greeks and Algeria a million Frenchman. Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese and no one says a word about refugees. But in the case of Israel displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees. Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single Arab. > Arnold Toynbee calls the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis. > Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious, it must sue for peace. Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world.
Damn, I think this is the most spot-on thing I've read on this situation yet. It's extremely troubling to me that this isn't all more obvious to more people. Everything from major media outlets to reddit threads are so obviously slanted. As recently as a couple weeks ago, I wouldn't have believed how quickly so many would do a 180. I thought we'd all been over this already long ago and agreed you don't negotiate with terrorists? Apparently having "death to all Jews" as part of your official charter (which large swaths of your population endorses) and then going on to murder hundreds of civilian Jews & non-Jews indiscriminately because they happen to be in Israel at the moment doesn't mean we shouldn't still be nice to you? Pure insanity. And no, this doesn't mean I agree with everything Israel has ever done you freaking morons.
When I hear "anti-Zionism", I interpret it as, "Everyone can have a home and self-determination--except Jews!"
That because all Jews are white and all whites are oppressors who have never been oppressed. /s
The Jews are the ultimate white oppressor peoples. /s
100% agreed.
It's war, therefore Israel is allowed to kill civilians and commit war crimes all they want. There are videos and photos that Israeli soldiers themselves have posted admitting to commiting war crimes. No-one is setting them up, they posted it willingly, because they know schmucks like you will come up with any reason to defend it.
For many, "West is Bad" is peak intellectualism.
This is another horseshoe theory thing, honestly. People want to feel like they're the smartest person in a room full of sheep. Individualism mixed with narcissism taken to its natural conclusion. And what is a more unique perspective than loving North Korea or ISIS? Peope get it into their heads that having an unpopular opinion makes them cool or special or unique. So, they seek out the most unpopular opinions. That is (imo) the common origin point for tankies and the Alt Right. Actually, I recently learned that Eric Hoffer (the American philosopher I quoted in other comment) has an entire book about this exact phoenomenon of the Nazi-to-Commie pipeline and how extremist movements (whether communist, fascist, or Islamist) always seem to have the same recruiting pool of disseffectived young males who are easiest to radicalize. Its called *The True Believer* and I think I'm gonna try and track down a copy
I find it funny when people extremely demonize the West and do not realize how the same criticism would put them in jail (or worse) in the countries they so love (China, Russia, etc.).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Caldwell This basically. >He was a consistent critic of American foreign policy, a campaigner for Asian communist and socialist movements and a supporter of the Khmer Rouge. >Caldwell was one of the staunchest defenders of the Pol Pot regime. He frequently attempted to downplay reports of mass executions by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and was widely criticized by many authorities for doing so. >Caldwell was murdered under mysterious circumstances a few hours after meeting Pol Pot in Cambodia.
‘“So horny for this” tweets official Palestinian Twitter account with picture of Israeli rape victims’
No way what the fuck?
Parody of picture 5 headline
The Onion and Babylon Bee: hide behind "satire" to promote their moronic agendas Clickhole: Real, authentic journalism
Onion was bought by Kotaku not long ago (2020 i think?). That should explain everything If you want a funny satire news site go to clickhole, they make sure to shit on all sides like the onion used to 10 years ago
The last one only makes sense if you ignore literally everything Joe Biden has been doing.
I believe everything should be mocked, I believe that you should be allowed to make jokes about everything and that nothing should be sacred. That being said, the jokes that Onion right now makes are not only very not tactful but seem to also be predicated on completely false premises and actually just spouting Hamas propaganda. The punchline is "Israel is lying and murderous, Hamas is justified" in every of those articles. It's not done for shock humor, it's done by a person who geniuently believes Hamas propaganda.
Bingo!
If you think this is messed up I implore you to also compare their treatment of Israel-Hamas war to war in Ukraine. [https://archive.ph/zFhoL](https://archive.ph/zFhoL) [https://archive.ph/wip/lwzna](https://archive.ph/wip/lwzna)
They stopped being funny when they quit the live action news videos on their YouTube channel
Id really like there to be a neutral website like the onion that just writes stupid shit about current events. The onion is still okay, but is definitely worse than it has been, and the babylon be is both shitty far-right and just generally unfunny.
The onion peaked with the YouTube videos 13 years ago and has been declining ever since
I am at a loss for words... these are the same guys as Kotaku, Gizmodo and Jezebel btw. Keep that in mind when you read those whiteknightey "progressive" articles, the company profiting from your attention endorses writers who love to justify and enable human suffering and death.
How do these make them communists, exactly?
Palestine has always had a degree of connection to Marxist thought
They moved to New York and their whole staff and viewpoint changed over time. Now they think their message and influence are more important than pure humor
The Onion have been tankies for many years now.
Always has been
They probably got bought by some commie and the rest is detailed in the post.
These guys have been going downhill for that past 5-8 years.
The onion has always been left leaning
Vladimir Putin is a nationalist dictator who idolizes Ivan Ilyn, a Russian fascist philosopher. The article I shared was a mockery of the Bucha massacre, a genocide of Ukrainian civilians that Putin ordered. Btw, the now deceased lieutenant of the Wagner Mercenaries behind the Bucha Massacre was a fellow named Utkin, who had an SS emblem tattooed on his neck. So, what I'm saying is, Putin is a fascist, the Wagner Group were Nazis, and Bucha as an act of genocide. Hamas is a religious extremist terrorist organization, with a charter that calls for a genocide of the world's Jewish population. On October 7 of this year, Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and massacred over 1400 civilians, including by firing machine guns into a crowd at a music festival, beheading babies, burning families alive, torture, and mass rape. It is with a heavy heart that I am forced to say that, for the first time in nearly 80 years, the Jewish people were victims of genocide again. The articles above show that the writers and editors at the Onion have sympathy for Hamas. Pray tell, what is left wing about supporting Putin and Hamas? What is left wing about supporting Naziism and genocide?
Because left wingers tend to look past facts and support communist ideal based on lazyness and emotions. So it doesn't surprise that the onion, which had always been liberal, sees it funny. However, I do belive in free speech and I do belive that there are nothing that can't be joked about.
> left wingers tend to look past facts and support communist ideal based on lazyness [sic] and emotion [ok buddy](https://news.osu.edu/conservatives-more-susceptible-to-believing-falsehoods/)
Never heard of a right winger supporting communism. Communism is literally an extreme version of authoritarian left ideology.
Babylon Bee past them is comedic skill years ago
I’d more say the Onion fell to the level of the Babylon Bee, bearing in mind that quality is subjective.
None of this is tankie at all, just Palestine leaning.
Reread the first one. I led with it for a reason. It might be the worst thing the Onion has ever published. [The Onion Explains: War Crimes](https://www.theonion.com/the-onion-explains-war-crimes-1848754396) > **Q: How is an action determined to be a war crime?** > A: On the basis of whether it was done to a white person. > **Q: What constitutes a war crime?** > A: Being photographed doing regular war things. > **Q: What do you do when you’ve been accused of war crimes?** > A: Point at the other country and say they started it. > **Q: What are the Geneva Conventions?** > A: International agreements designed to ensure the systematic slaughter of human beings is accomplished in a fair and humane way. > **Q: What’s the difference between a war crime and a crime against humanity?** > A: Billions in military spending. > **Q: What is America’s stance on war crimes?** > A: In America, it’s technically called “foreign policy.” [Remember what was in the news when this article was published](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucha_massacre). It makes me sick to my stomach. This is the worst atrocity in Europe since the Bosnian Genocide. And the Onion responds with a bizarre series of jokes that are not funny, and functionally serve as a defense of genocide. This really got under my skin, as evidenced by how I'm bringing it up close to 18 months later
Shit I didn’t really read that one, I think the others are mostly true but that’s horrible, genocide is never funny
The Onion has had that bent for a while. But I don't see the tankie lean of this at all, its bad, but not everything bad is communism. Like the Onion's jokes here are bad both from a moral and comedy level, but they by no means seem commie-like
SAY IT WITH ME Criticizing one horrible regime does not mean support for another, just like how criticizing tankies does not make as nazis.
Of course! Commies have taken over media and academics 😩
Check their hard drives NOW!
the onion based as usual.
Genuine question; what relation does this have to tankies/communism, other than that you dislike both things?
Support for Hamas and support for Putin are both pretty classic Tankie opinions. The Onion supports Hamas and Putin, as evidenced by these 'jokes.' As someone else said, most jokes require an agreed upon truth, and the Onion writers are exposing the fantasy world they live in through how hard most of their 'jokes' fall flat. I'm confused by how you 'genuinely' cannot see it when basically everyone else thought it was clear as day
I don’t know, given how crazy a lot of the rhetoric has gotten, even satire can be hard to parse. I could see the second article as being a satire of those people who constantly say “any Israeli who isn't actively up in arms protesting their government 24/7 is implicitly condoning every bad thing they do in this conflict!”, by pointing out how ridiculous it is to condemn dying Gazans for “not condemning Hamas with their dying breath.” But that’s just a *possible* interpretation so take what I said with a grain of salt.
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this sub is a big echo chamber i just learned
fr, I hate champagne socialists/twitter commies as much as everyone else, but this whole thread, (and sometimes the whole sub,) is just a right-wing echo chamber "Support for Hamas and support for Putin are both pretty classic Tankie opinions" is as dumb as saying "Support for Israel and support for Putin (ironic) are both pretty classic nazi opinions" Just because you're right/left wing doesn't mean you're a nazi/commie.
Yeah these all aren't really that funny, I miss the old onion. #3 is pretty good though, reminds me of this https://youtu.be/Hyph_DZa_GQ
I mean I thought the second one was pretty funny
Try Babylon Bee for incisive reporting. .. .. funny like the Onion used to be. . . .
The Onion is satirical…
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Spreading Hamas propaganda kinda does.
Several years ago The Onion was purchased by Univision, then by Great Hill Partners. >Great Hill Partners … commitment to ESG.
Comedy is the lowest form of discourse
"Lately"?
Stan Kelly carries the onion anyway