WebProNews

Tag: The Onion

  • The Onion Might Be Up For Sale, Too

    The Onion Might Be Up For Sale, Too

    Popular comedy sites are putting themselves on the market left and right. Well, really just two – but they’re two important properties.

    Fresh off the news that Will Ferrell’s Funny or Die has hired a financial advisor to evaluate their options, it looks like The Onion has done the same.

    According to a report from Bloomberg, Onion Inc. (which owns The Onion and the popular A.V. Club) is now working with investment bank GCA Savvian, looking at a potential sale. No speculated price is attached to the report.

    The Onion was founded in 1988 by two University of Wisconsin-Madison juniors – Tim Keck and Christopher Johnson. According to Keck, the satirical paper got its name when his uncle suggested he name it that after seeing him eating an onion sandwich. The Onion published a print edition for 25 years, ending its run in 2013. As of today it’s an online-only venture – but one that nets a significant amount of traffic. Thanks to name recognition and a strong social media presence, The Onion‘s website receives about six million unique visitors every month.

    The two most prominent wings of Onion Inc, apart from The Onion’s main site and the entertainment destination A.V Club, are its Onion News Network (YouTube videos) and the newly-launched Clickhole – which parodies clickbait sites like BuzzFeed and Upworthy.

  • Facebook Is Reminding Idiots That The Onion Is Satire

    Because people are generally idiots, Facebook has begun reminding people that articles from The Onion are indeed satirical, and should not be shared as serious articles replete with outrage, disgust, and general displeasure. I guess some Facebook engineer saw his friend Tiffany, once again outraged by the man that locked himself in a hot car to prove that babies and dogs are cowards, and said screw it – I gotta do something about this.

    For some users, Facebook is generating a [Satire] tag in front of article titles in the “related articles” feature in the news feed. You know how Facebook will auto-generate three related articles under any article that you interact with? Well, if any of those articles come from The Onion, they’re being labeled as [Satire].

    Ars Technica first spotted this, and I was able to recreate it in my own news feed.

    Oddly enough, the [Satire] tag only appears in the related article box, not beside the original article. This could be an oversight, or simply a future feature that Facebook hasn’t added yet. Or all of this could vanish as quickly as it appeared, as Facebook tests tons of new features every week and abandons most of them.

    Although I do enjoy grabbing a bucket of popcorn, leaning back, and watching the shitstorm unfold when a friend shares an Onion article they think is real, Facebook’s simple reminder is probably best for mankind. If you want to see the human race in its finest form, you can check out the site Literally Unbelievable, which is devoted entirely to people sharing Onion articles as truth.

  • Whysk Is Here to Redefine On-Demand Transportation

    Clickhole, The Onion’s self-described “latest and greatest online social experience filled with the most clickable, irresistibly shareable content anywhere on the internet,” is fun. It really is. It’s a self-aware Buzzfeed. It’s a self-loathing Upworthy. It’s also a smart move.

    And dammit, this is funny.

    Clickhole presents, Whysk. It’s ready to challenge Uber and Lyft in the ridesharing field by offering something absolutely revolutionary – rides that aren’t actually rides. Well, they are rides, kind of.

    Whysk allows you to be whisked away to your location by on-demand monks. Just watch.

    Just perfect.

    Image via Clickhole, screenshot

  • 6 Ways The Onion’s Clickbait Parody Site Is Everything – What You Read Here May Change Your Life

    Today, The Onion launched Clickhole, its self-described “latest and greatest online social experience filled with the most clickable, irresistibly shareable content anywhere on the internet.”

    And here’s why it’s absolutely everything.

    1. It’s literally impossible to tell the difference between a Clickhole article and a BuzzFeed article:

    I mean literally, amirite?

    2. It’s literally impossible to tell the difference between a Clickhole article and an Upworthy article:

    I mean literally, aminotwrong?

    3. They’re refreshingly honest about their mission. This is a no-haters zone, so if you’re trying to be negative it just hain’t gonna happen!

    Content only goes viral if people like it and want to share it. It’s all about making the world a better place, I think.

    4. Clickhole, by disguising itself as a “clickbait parody” site, is able to enjoy the best of both worlds. On one hand, it’s able to do what The Onion does best – lampoon the countless, unfathomably inane aspects of our culture in a way that contains both humor and poignancy.

    And on the other hand, it allows The Onion to produce the very same content that it’s lampooning – that highly-shareable, mindless content that’s made Buzzfeed and Upworthy the king and prince or viral content. And make money off of it!

    OMG, meta alert!

    5. This John Mulaney reference:

    6. There is no 6. It’s like the spoon LOL.

  • The Samsung Apex Is Set to Blow the Competition Out of the Water

    The Samsung Apex Is Set to Blow the Competition Out of the Water

    NSFW

    In consumer tech nowadays it’s all about one-upping the last guy – making a product that can do more, and do it better and faster. The Onion has a pretty great take on the innovation race – a new device that will blow everything else out of the water.

    That device is the Samsung Apex, a wearable computing device that “streams videos into one eye, the internet into the other, and sucks your dick all at the same time.”

    “Hang it up Apple – we beat you to the punch on this one. Samsung’s got you by the balls!” screams fictional Samsung spokesman Neal Werner.


    New Wearable Computer Also Sucks Your Dick

    What’s funny is that given today’s climate, this doesn’t even seem like that much of a stretch.

    [The Onion]

  • The Onion Apologizes For Quvenzhané Wallis Tweet

    [Warning: one possibly offensive word appears in this article]

    On Sunday night, while the movie industry was celebrating its biggest night, satirical publication The Onion started a Twitter-tantrum by posting a no-holds-barred tweet meant to shock docile red carpet watchers. The tweet involved nine-year-old Quvenzhané Wallis, who was up for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Beasts of the Southern Wild. The tweet was vulgar and quickly deleted, but read:

    Everyone else seems afraid to say it, but that Quvenzhané Wallis is kind of a cunt, right? #Oscars2013

    The tweet was obviously meant to be shocking, but it seemed to have touched that American nerve that is super-sensitive to certain words, especially those that imply racism or sexism.

    Though The Onion issued the internet version of a retraction by deleting the Tweet (why bother?), the sentence had already spread and the flame war had started. Sensing the need to go even further than retraction, The Onion CEO Steve Hannah has issued an apology on the publication’s website and Facebook page. From the apology:

    On behalf of The Onion, I offer my personal apology to Quvenzhané Wallis and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the tweet that was circulated last night during the Oscars. It was crude and offensive—not to mention inconsistent with The Onion’s commitment to parody and satire, however biting.

    No person should be subjected to such a senseless, humorless comment masquerading as satire.

    Hannah also stated that The Onion has put in place “tighter Twitter procedures” and that the publication is “taking immediate steps to discipline those individuals responsible.”

  • Yahoo Comedy Channel Gets New Onion Show

    Yahoo Comedy Channel Gets New Onion Show

    Yahoo Screen has launched a new show on the Yahoo Comedy channel: The Onion’s Extremely Accurate History Of The Internet. The show is produced by Yahoo Studios and (of course) The Onion.

    “The new this show is a comical satirical documentary that reveals the past of the world wide web,” a Yahoo spokesperson tells WebProNews.

    Here’s the official description:

    The Internet finally gets some well deserved attention. “The Onion’s Extremely Accurate History of the Internet” will reveal the past of this vast and glorious data network, starting with the carved stone modems of our African ancestors, through the wifi enabled monks of Medieval Europe, to the porn-laden web of today.

    The channel is also renewing four out of its original six shows (Burning Love, First Dates With Toby Harris, Odd Nes, and Sketchy). The shows will launch over the next several weeks, and will be programmed throughout the Yahoo network and on Yahoo Screen, the spokesperson says.

  • Kickstarter Panhandlers Are “Not As Bad As Child Molesters, But Close”

    Crowdsourced funding site Kickstarter says that it is a way to “fund & follow creativity,” but the folks at The Onion have a different opinion of the site. To them, it’s all an internet scam that features beggars peddling a bunch of stuff nobody really needs.

    Harsh, I know. But you have to admit, for every interesting, well-thought-out, deserving project you find on the site – there are at least a couple duds. For every awesome zombie RPG, iPad to Etch-a-Sketch converter, iPhone-ready bra, and nifty little tin can USB phone, there are a couple dozen Ron Paul video game ideas and as*hole alarm clocks waiting to suck you dry.

    Not to mention the well-intentioned but slightly delusional NYU grads and their “projects.”

    Check out how The Onion is warning people about the threat of Kickstarter below:

    Mashable says that this video is the season premiere of The Onion’s Tech Trends series. It joins shows like “This Week in History,” “War for the White House,” and “O-SPAN,” in The Onion’s rotation of satirical hilarity.

  • Louisiana Congressman Believes & Reposts Onion Article

    Congressman John Fleming (R-LA) posted an article on his Facebook page yesterday about Planned Parenthood. The article announced the grand opening of an $8 billion “Abortionplex’ in Topeka, Kansas, funded by Planned Parenthood.

    If all this sounds familiar, you probably have seen this story before. In The Onion.

    Apparently no one had told the gentleman from Louisiana that The Onion is pure satire. One commenter asked the Congressman: “How exactly did you get elected?” The posting has since been deleted from Fleming’s page. But, here’s a screenshot for you.