When Satire Fails, The Onion Prints the Truth
I used to be a big fan of The Onion, an online satire newspaper, years ago. I remember looking forward to new editions published online every Wednesday. Several years ago I stopped reading it because it had gotten... well, I don't think stale is the right word, though it had gotten a bit stale. The real problem was that current events in the US were getting so ridiculous, so absurd with obvious things that moneyed interests or political interests were clearly gaslighting us on, that attempts to write satire became unfunny. When the real news is full of leaders making a mockery of the truth- i.e., lying- with straight faces, there's no satire anymore.
Today I found a link in the news to an article in The Onion that reminded me of the classics of old. In fact it is old. It was originally published in 2013... and has been republished multiple dozen times since then. I checked on their website, and sure enough there's a new version of it today:
The Onion re-publishes this article after many mass shootings in the US, changing only the byline and a few key words about where it occurred. Today's it about a shooting in Half Moon Bay, California, on Monday that killed 7 people.
The bulk of the article the The Onion keeps the same every time:
[C]itizens living in the only country where this kind of mass killing routinely occurs reportedly concluded Tuesday that there was no way to prevent the massacre from taking place. “This was a terrible tragedy, but sometimes these things just happen and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop them,” said New Hampshire resident Lisa Martin, echoing sentiments expressed by tens of millions of individuals who reside in a nation where over half of the world’s deadliest mass shootings have occurred in the past 50 years and whose citizens are 20 times more likely to die of gun violence than those of other developed nations. “It’s a shame, but what can we do? There really wasn’t anything that was going to keep this individual from snapping and killing a lot of people if that’s what they really wanted.” At press time, residents of the only economically advanced nation in the world where roughly two mass shootings have occurred every month for the past eight years were referring to themselves and their situation as “helpless.”
Sometimes, sadly, the most powerful satire is the bare truth.
Though there's one thing they get wrong in the article. They note mass shootings occur twice a month. The true number is more, way more. They occur on average at least once a day.
[Updated 25 Jan 2023 for spelling, clarity, and accuracy.]
Today I found a link in the news to an article in The Onion that reminded me of the classics of old. In fact it is old. It was originally published in 2013... and has been republished multiple dozen times since then. I checked on their website, and sure enough there's a new version of it today:
The Onion re-publishes this article after many mass shootings in the US, changing only the byline and a few key words about where it occurred. Today's it about a shooting in Half Moon Bay, California, on Monday that killed 7 people.
The bulk of the article the The Onion keeps the same every time:
[C]itizens living in the only country where this kind of mass killing routinely occurs reportedly concluded Tuesday that there was no way to prevent the massacre from taking place. “This was a terrible tragedy, but sometimes these things just happen and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop them,” said New Hampshire resident Lisa Martin, echoing sentiments expressed by tens of millions of individuals who reside in a nation where over half of the world’s deadliest mass shootings have occurred in the past 50 years and whose citizens are 20 times more likely to die of gun violence than those of other developed nations. “It’s a shame, but what can we do? There really wasn’t anything that was going to keep this individual from snapping and killing a lot of people if that’s what they really wanted.” At press time, residents of the only economically advanced nation in the world where roughly two mass shootings have occurred every month for the past eight years were referring to themselves and their situation as “helpless.”
Sometimes, sadly, the most powerful satire is the bare truth.
Though there's one thing they get wrong in the article. They note mass shootings occur twice a month. The true number is more, way more. They occur on average at least once a day.
[Updated 25 Jan 2023 for spelling, clarity, and accuracy.]