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Comment by lubujackson | Hacker News Reader

I'm old enough to remember when it was a physical paper you'd get for free in Harvard Square... wish I kept some of them.

I particularly enjoyed the old "Point/Counterpoints" such as:

https://www.theonion.com/u-s-out-of-my-uterus-vs-we-must-dep...

https://www.theonion.com/americas-homeless-want-a-hand-up-no...

https://www.theonion.com/my-computer-totally-hates-me-vs-god...

Also, shout out to the "Oh! Mumford" comic strip that was insane absurdist meme-fuel. Might have to go to Internet Archive to unsurface those.

View on HN

My favorite Point/Counterpoint is https://www.theonion.com/according-to-the-economist-nasa-is-... "According To The Economist, NASA Is An Industrial Subsidy In Disguise vs. Oooh, Look At Me, I Read The Economist!"

I also have to give a shout out to the time they predicted the five blade razor a year before it came out: https://www.theonion.com/fuck-everything-were-doing-five-bla...

As a nice crossover, the Economist predicted the number of blades to go to infinity in this beautiful graph: https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2006/03/16/....

And then there's this from 1992 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YleuLyCUx28

I didn't have to click on the link to know what this would be. Love the D Generation and the Late Show.

Truly champagne comedy.

The point/counterpoint that I have thought about at least once a month for at least fifteen years: https://www.theonion.com/this-war-will-destabilize-the-entir...

"You are completely wrong."

I have a stack about a foot tall of copies i collected from the Obama era. Anyone idea what i should do with them? Perhaps donate them to the library as a public good?

They are still hilarious. My favorite is one where they pretended a Chinese ceo of a fish company bought the paper. It was filled with articles with bad statistics trying to get the common American to eat more fish, how wonderful the ccp is, and how weak and decadent the American people are. They also made the grammar terrible. Definitely riding the line with seeing what they could get away with!

I'm building a free magazine encyclopedia wiki. My email is on my profile. Happy to scan them and upload them if they are not already available in electronic format.

I’ve sent you an email

Mention of the Obama era reminded me of one of my favorite Onion headlines:

Mitt Romney Haunted By Past Of Trying To Help Uninsured Sick People

https://www.theonion.com/mitt-romney-haunted-by-past-of-tryi...

Yeah, or send them to archive.org for scanning and publishing on the web.

Nice. Okay, I’ll give it a shot :)

And these fullpage scans provide value above what theonion.com already provides?

You're never quite sure what you're actually looking at on the web.

Was this edited at any point after the listed publish date? Did it survive intact during the backend migrations since? Is that formatting supposed to be a bit weird? Is there originally supposed to be an image after that oddly placed paragraph break?

What did it look like back when `<blink>` and `<marquee>` were still a thing? Did it look better at 800x600? Did it show the same page to all user-agents?

Hard copies, physical reality (or at least rasters), are still the ultimate form of immutability.

Besides, who knows how long theonion.com will stay up. Or keeps giving access to all old articles?

After all, they've just been bought. Usually this results in changes, despite new owner's loud promises that nothing will change.

Well in this case everyone wants something to change. The onion's glory days were in the past.

A lot of people will be interested in the ads and other signs of the times.

I learned about it via "Monk Gloats over Yoga Championship"

https://www.theonion.com/monk-gloats-over-yoga-championship-...

I also frequently mention I don't watch television. In fact, I don't even own one.

https://www.theonion.com/area-man-constantly-mentioning-he-d...

For me, it was "Our Long National Nightmare of Peace and Prosperity Is Finally Over": https://www.theonion.com/bush-our-long-national-nightmare-of...

The foresight... still hurts to this day.

Wish it had gone this way. From 1998:

https://www.theonion.com/clinton-threatens-to-drop-da-bomb-o...

The article is funny and I agree with overall sentiment, but it's always surprising how people just forget Kosovo and Somalia. Clinton bombed a European country and doubled down on a hopeless mission in an African hellhole (before giving up), not exactly "sustained peace abroad". Even if you agree with the moves, you can't say it was all peace and love.

True, but those were tiny interventions that hardly affected mainstream USA at all, unlike the brutalizing experience of 9/11, Iraq, and Afghanistan in the following decade.

It's telling that the Iraq or Afghanistan vet (or both!) has replaced the Vietnam vet in TV shows and movies.

what does it tell?

the only thing it tells me is that time moves forward and a 70+ year old Vietnam veteran can't fit the role.

if you're saying that it indicates that the conflicts had a large impact, I would argue that actually it's because the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts lasted a long time and had an impact on Americans specifically, and Americans specifically have a large impact on television/movies/media.

Go ask Albanians and Serbs about their 'tiny intervention'.

The Americans lost 4500 in Iraq and 2400 in Afghanistan.

10000ish were killed in the Kosovo War, and 200,000 people ( at least ) were displaced.

The context of the post you replied to is effect on culture in the US. Were you looking for someone to go off on, or did you sincerely miss it?

Comparing the Kosovo and Somalia operations to Iraq and Afghanistan is like comparing a fly to a whale in basically any terms that matter. Human suffering, duration, lives lost, monetary cost, reputational cost in the world, etc.

Yes, this was an incredibly prescient article.

This one just keeps on aging like fine wine.

I love: https://www.theonion.com/bush-finds-error-in-fermilab-calcul...

How do you watch TV shows or movies?

Red Meat still exists, but absolutely nobody knows what I mean when I say, "I hate you, Milkman Dan" and hasn't for 25 years.

Oh gosh Milkman Dan, what a blast from the past. All the good memories of early edgy net absurdism.

I loved Red Meat. I didn’t know it still existed, but I do have three of the books.

I also have the complete Jim’s Journal, but alas I never got a t-shirt. “I went to class even though I didn’t real want to” was my favorite

…

Is it still there?

It is. Don’t look.

One of my favorites.

I used to love that comic. I suspect I still will, but I'll know for sure after binge the 20+ years I missed. :)

I see you, Papa Moai!

Taking a shot: Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles?

These are all great, another good one is

“This War Will Destabilize The Entire Mideast Region And Set Off A Global Shockwave Of Anti-Americanism vs. No It Won’t”

https://www.theonion.com/this-war-will-destabilize-the-entir...

Like fine wine. We need a new 2024 one:

Why Republicans Have Little Cachet Amongst the Educated In The Past 2 Decades A Total Fucking Mystery

I’m old enough to remember when it was a black and white paper you could only get at UW Madison.

They had an issue with a banner headline: W A R

And when you unfolded it, the subhead was “C’mon! Let’s have one!”

I don't think I'm the target audience. I don't really get it.

I spent years homeless. I try to write about meaningful ways to help the homeless while preserving their agency. I try to write about systemic issues I feel contribute to the problem.

I don't find that second link funny or relatable or anything that makes sense to me.

I don’t think any of the articles that grandparent linked are really the most exemplary Onion articles. The onion is really at its best when it manages to nail it exactly right. Sometimes they are just so perfectly in touch with cultural zeitgeist it’s uncanny. Here are two of the most memorable ones in recent memory:

https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-na...

https://www.theonion.com/the-onion-stands-with-israel-becaus...

Funny, to me these are the worst type of Onion articles, pandering to people on one side of a political issue. I think it's lazy and predictable.

The onion has always been political commentary. In my opinion, it is some of the most impactful, even to this day. Every time there is a mass shooting, the onion reposts the same article — linked above. All they do is edit the time and place. They also bump every other article they published to the front page.

It's incredible commentary on the fact these things keep happening in completely predictable ways.

This was especially prescient: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjonGtrCyVE

There's no rule of humor that says it must be politically neutral.

If you want balance, feel free to post equally funny satire with a right-wing slant.

Though it might be harder to find anything equivalent, since biting political humor and satire can be politically asymmetric.

Babylon Bee is the one on the other side of the aisle.

(That's a deliberate Christian meta-joke).

> ‘The Onion’ Stands With Israel Because It Seems Like You Get In Less Trouble For That

This is a recent Onion classic.

The thing about the Onion is, once you’ve got a great headline - and maybe a photo, which will usually be a head shot - the text of the article sometimes seems largely superfluous. They actually ought to be doing better in the age of Twitter and so on, but it didn’t work out that way.

https://www.theonion.com/report-we-don-t-make-any-money-if-y...

>> "Report: We Don’t Make Any Money If You Don’t Click The Fucking Link"

Here is another article that's on point. The Onion does have a way with (omitting) words.

https://www.theonion.com/israel-assures-it-doing-everything-...

"Israel Assures It Doing Everything Possible To Minimize Civilians"

I’ve felt for a long time that The Onion is the reincarnation of Voltaire: savage, subtle, clever, culturally relevant, slightly undersold in its time. They will be studied in history books, or whatever the equivalent of books become. Even if you don’t agree with the political spin, you cannot discount the beauty of how they took such a common political phrase and turned it on its head like that.

Then there's no reason to visit the site. The link card will give you everything you're looking for.

I think the de facto purpose of the article text when shared online is to make it more plausible to someone who doesn't know the site is parody.

I happen to enjoy the content itself, even if it's all just riffing on the joke on the headline. But I'm a big fan of snark in general.

Also, I'm not 100% sure, but perhaps there are some SEO boosts from having long form article content that wouldn't be gained from just having a title and a blurb (though they do also do those very short form articles as well, where it's a few sentences with the headline)

Okay, I chuckled at the Ted Kaczynski signature, aka The Unabomber.

I assumed all the other "board member signatures" were similarly infamous bad guys but I can't figure out what they all are and when I search on Steve Hannah, he apparently actually was the CEO of The Onion at one time.

I agree with some of their points about it being a conflict going back hundreds of years. I personally think it's inevitable that war broke out given how psycho controlling Isreal is about Gaza's water supply.

I still probably am not the target audience for The Onion and won't really understand a lot of it. I was full-time homemaker a lot of years for an American woman my age. I did well in school. I value HN and have participated here a lot, but have zero friends, professional contacts etc via HN.

I don't generally "go along to get along." I try to avoid social friction by other means and the result appears to be I don't ever really fit in anywhere because I'm not willing to mouth empty agreement with the group consensus.

And, I mean, there's likely other reasons I fail to fit in anywhere but I strongly suspect that's a really large factor.

I really like the T. Herman Zweibel signature at the bottom. He was by far my favorite recurring character.

Not the Onion, but a list of H. T. Zweibel articles: https://muckrack.com/t-herman-zweibel/articles

Might be relevant to point out that "zwiebel" is German for onion.

FYI if anyone else here is as clueless as I am:

Publisher Emeritus, T. Herman Zweibel, writes frequent editorials, growing more and more erratic until he's removed from power by the board of directors in the 1950s.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Dumb_Century

There's not any correlation between fitting the standard HN mold and liking The Onion. I'm a barista who just checks in here for the marginal stuff outside the tech professional centered stuff, and I'm a big fan of The Onion.

Honestly, I think the disconnect is that you pay very close attention while you read, while the Onion's style caters more to a quick glance-through. They rarely have every point nailed down completely, because they're expecting you to just be moving on quickly anyway.

Do you realize The Onion is a satirical comedy newspaper?

Absolutely.

Do you also struggle to enjoy other classic satire? Ever read anything by Kurt Vonnegut?

Sorry what?

As a Canuck, US politics is typically indecipherable, eh! Most news makes no sense, until I found The Onion. Now you are telling me, you bunch of hosers made it all up!

Signed "Bob Jenkins, Canadian Minister of National Affairs"

"You made it all up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!”, Charlton Heston, a Great Canadian

[deleted]

Well, The Onion is not there to write about meaningful ways to help the homeless. Their job is to satirize the dumb views that people push.

As with any comedy, they are hits a misses. And probably more misses than hits. But they just keep shooting and people mostly remember the gems.

Tangent: congrats on no longer being homeless! Your comment piqued my curiosity so I checked out your profile, and wow! is it great, full of interesting links etc. Glad you're here on HN.

P.S. Yeah, the onion is pretty hit-or-miss, tho the ratio is pretty good IMHO. YMMV but one of my all-time favorites was about Harry Potter being a sinister secret recruiting vehicle for satan worship -- and I learned about it from a friend whose parents were among the huge number of christianists who thought it was legit journalism and forwarded it in one of the biggest ~early-internet-days chainmail events ever.

https://www.theonion.com/harry-potter-books-spark-rise-in-sa...

Ignoring for the moment that "unsurface" isn't even a word, I think you mean the opposite, "surface" (as a slightly pretentious way of saying "discover").

Holy shit lol that was sooo funny.

“Never mind that Dr. Glickman screwed up and bought this colossal ditz of a receptionist more computer than she could ever possibly need for record-keeping at a small dentist's office.“

How do you know someone went to Harvard?

They tell you...

FYI, The Onion is from Madison WI, not Cambridge...

FYI, Harvard Square is a public place, thousands of people visit and pass through it every day who aren't Harvard students. It's not part of the actual Harvard campus (as opposed to e.g. Harvard Yard).

And still, its nowhere near Madison WI...

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