When reality becomes stranger than satire, satirists may have something to teach us. The Onion confirmed Thursday that its parent company has acquired Infowars, the disgraced company that provided Sandy Hook misinformation and sold pseudoscientific supplements. The Onion posted on Bluesky that it plans to turn the rebooted Infowars into a “very funny, very stupid website.”
The Onion Inc. says it has the blessing of the families of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims to scoop up Infowars in a bankruptcy auction. The nonprofit organization Everytown for Gun Safety, which was founded after the massacre, plans to advertise on the relaunched site, according to reports. Infowars founder Alex Jones will be liable for approximately $1.5 billion in damages in 2022 for spreading conspiracy theories about the 2012 mass shooting that killed 20 children and six adult staff members. It turned out.
Elon Musk allowed Jones to return last year after he was “permanently” banned from the X (Twitter) platform in 2018 under previous ownership.
As a major American satirical publication (at least one that consciously does so), The Onion’s acquisition announcement remained on brand. Its tone, hinting at what was to come, was similar to the Colbert Report on steroids (or perhaps Jones’ Survival Shield X-2 pills).
“Founded in 1999 on the heels of the Devil’s ‘Panic’ and steadily growing since then, InfoWars has emerged as a valuable tool for brainwashing and controlling the masses,” The Onion says. I wrote it in a mixed statement. “With a clever combination of delusional paranoia and dubious anti-aging nutritional hacks, they strive for the laudable goal of making everyone’s lives scarier and longer. They are true unicorns. It could galvanize public support for a billionaire and at the same time stir up anger at an incompetent federal state that could assassinate JFK but can’t even land a man on the moon.
According to the New York Times, The Onion plans to rebrand Infowars as a parody of itself (even more so than before) by making fun of “weird internet celebrities” like Jones. Ben Collins, CEO of The Onion’s parent company, Global Tetrahedron, won’t say how much he paid to turn Infowars’ destructive self-parody into constructive satire. (Collins reported extensively on Infowars when he covered misinformation for NBC News.) He plans to launch the rebooted site in January.
