Saturday, September 14, 2019

The Moment When The Onion Stopped Mattering

Re-posted by Nicholas Stix

By JimDandy
September 14, 2019 at 5:21 a.m. GMT
isteve/The Unz Review

Not bad. But when a cute, innocent little black girl was nominated for Best Actress, The Onion covered The Oscars and tweeted “Everyone else seems afraid to say it, but that Quvenzhané Wallis is kind of a c–t, right? #Oscars2013” and it was shockingly hilarious.

Then The Onion apologized. The Onion apologized. And that was the moment The Onion stopped mattering.



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Only if the idiot who apologized/ordered the apology,was removed,could "The "Onion" be given another chance--and maybe he was.There are many layers to a story like this;the apologist may have been too green to understand that,what allows a publication like "The Onion" to keep its identity as a fearless humor machine,is as important as the humor itself--and that quality is backbone.
They still have some funny items worth reading--as with any good "Onion",you occasionally laugh so hard,tears form in your eyes--a rarity in comedy these days--just catch an episode of Colbert,Kimmell or Seth Meyers to prove THAT point.
Btw,did you hear,Joe Biden was supposed to make an important announcement about his memory Friday--but he forgot?
--GRA

Anonymous said...

GRA:I did a little digging.The CEO's name was Steve Hannah--the guy lasted two more years after the apology.Shortly after the official "Onion" apology--there was another--by upset former Onion types.
(HUFFPOST)The Onion” has released a rare apology after the parody newspaper’s Oscars tweet about young actress Quvenzhané Wallis sparked controversy.

Soon after, ThingX.com, another parody website staffed primarily by former “Onion” editors, released an apology of their own.

When “The Onion” moved its editorial staff from New York to Chicago in 2012, many of its long-time editors and writers stayed behind to create Thing X, a new parody website claiming to be “The Future Of Free Will.”

Today, Thing X took on their former employer, lampooning “Onion” CEO Steve Hannah’s public apology with their own, much longer apology, “for everything we’ve ever done,” which includes a slew of horrendous acts that never actually occurred. It is signed — using the same slur used in the aforementioned controversial “Onion” tweet — “Steve Banannah,” an obvious play on Hannnah’s name.

Read the entire response, re-posted with permission from Thing X, below. Warning: some NSFW language.

Feb. 25, 2013

Dear Consumers,

On behalf of Thing X, I’d like to offer the following public apology for everything we’ve ever done:

I am sorry to the thousands of people who took offense when we suggested that water chestnuts were worse than the Killing Fields of Cambodia. The fact that I find their sickening, crunchy texture and utter lack of flavor personally disgusting, is irrelevant to the millions who died in that terrible tragedy.

They are really bad, though.

We’d like to apologize to those who did not enjoy our Christmas album, “Now That’s A Merry Fucking Christmas!” The word “Fuck” was testing well that year among schoolchildren, and we figured it would be a no-brainer.

We’d also like to say “we are sorry” to the dozens of schoolchildren we accidentally released nerve gas on in our testing chambers the year we released our Christmas album.

In addition, let me take this opportunity to apologize to anyone who’s ever been offended by anything at any point throughout time. To be challenged in any way, or made to feel an emotion that is not immediately recognizable, is the worst thing in the world, and something for which the incredible human gift of language should never, ever be used. We are sorry if your feelings were ever hurt about anything.

To that end, we’re sorry to the people of Pompeii, JonBenet Ramsey, the people of Afghanistan, the people of Iraq, the people of Rochester, New York, those who were unhappy with their last meal, the world’s retarded people, the victims of the tsunami thing, anyone who was offended just now by the term “retarded people,” Jimmy Spivey, whom I made fun of in high school for his big fat head, Armenians, and, most importantly, victims everywhere—especially our advertisers.

Rest assured that from this day forward, nothing will matter to us more than your comfort, now and after we are dead. Moreover, we have taken immediate action and murdered every intern involved with these incidents.

I feel like such a cunt right now.

Yours,

Steve Banannah
Thing X CEO
GRA:So Hannah was dumped--does THAT erase the mistake?No,but maybe it prevents another apology.
--GRA