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The Onion buys InfoWars
Anna Betts, writing for The Guardian:
The satirical news outlet the Onion has purchased Infowars, the rightwing media platform run by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, at a court-ordered auction.
The news was confirmed on Thursday morning in a video by Jones himself, as well as the head of the Onion's parent company.
“[T]he head of the Onion’s parent company” is one “Bryce P. Tetraeder”, Global Tetrahedron CEO, who explained his reasons for the purchase on The Onion:
All told, the decision to acquire InfoWars was an easy one for the Global Tetrahedron executive board.
Founded in 1999 on the heels of the Satanic “panic” and growing steadily ever since, InfoWars has distinguished itself as an invaluable tool for brainwashing and controlling the masses. With a shrewd mix of delusional paranoia and dubious anti-aging nutrition hacks, they strive to make life both scarier and longer for everyone, a commendable goal. They are a true unicorn, capable of simultaneously inspiring public support for billionaires and stoking outrage at an inept federal state that can assassinate JFK but can’t even put a man on the Moon.
Through it all, InfoWars has shown an unswerving commitment to manufacturing anger and radicalizing the most vulnerable members of society—values that resonate deeply with all of us at Global Tetrahedron.
This both is, and isn’t, “an Onion story.”
The (supposedly real) CEO of The Onion, Ben Collins, wrote on Bluesky[1]:
Hi everyone.
The Onion, with the help of the Sandy Hook families, has purchased InfoWars.
We are planning on making it a very funny, very stupid website.
We have retained the services of some Onion and Clickhole Hall of Famers to pull this off.
I can't wait to show you what we have cooked up.
InfoWars was already “very stupid” so they only need to make it “very funny.” I have faith they can do that.
(Collins also included a link to a New York Times story as—I suppose—confirmation this wasn’t “an Onion story.” He should have chosen a more reputable site.)
Collins also wrote:
You better fucking subscribe to The Onion. This is the kind of thing we will do with your money.
It allowed us to buy InfoWars. Now help us staff it.
Done.
His Bluesky name, “Tim Onion,” is a swipe at Donald Trump, who once called Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, “Tim Apple.” I would have expected “Ben Onion” though. Perhaps that’s why I don’t run a globally beloved satire site. ↩︎
‘The Onion’ Gets New Owners, New Print Edition, in a Story That Sounds Like It’s From ‘The Onion’
Nilay Patel at The Verge, in a transcription of his Decoder podcast (Overcast; Apple Podcasts), interviews Ben Collins and Danielle Strle, The Onion’s new CEO and Chief Product Officer:
BC: I was reading Adweek, and I saw The Onion was for sale, and this was around the time where things were just shuttering. Sports Illustrated and Jezebel just shuttered — and it was from the same company, G/O owned Jezebel — or things were being turned into AI slop farms or Elon Musk was buying it. Worst-case scenario.
I posted on Bluesky. I said: “The Onion’s for sale, who wants to help me buy this thing? I have $600.” Leila Brillson, who’s in Chicago where The Onion is based, emailed me, and she was like, “But seriously, how do we do this? It’s an institution. We can’t let this thing die. It’s important to keep this thing alive.” I was like, “Let me just make some phone calls.” The first person I called was Danielle because she just knows.
Two and a half months later, he, Strle, and Twilio founder Jeff Lawson own the joint. How is that not an Onion story?
(Except, oddly, there’s not a single mention of Lawson or Twilio on the site. Is their new billionaire owner censoring them?!)
Patel:
There’s a lot going on in this episode, but the one thing I want to call out is just how much fun Ben and Danielle seem to be having. That’s a rare quality in media right now, and it’s infectious. In fact, I’ll just go out and say it because I think you’re going to hear it in the episode: I’m rooting for them to succeed. I have all the same memories of reading The Onion as anyone else, and I hope they figure it out.
I don’t read The Onion regularly, but when I do, it always hits. So deep-seated is the site in our cultural zeitgeist that “Not an Onion Headline” conveys an immediate understanding of quality, and “‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens” verges on liturgical.