God bless the goddamn Onion

it's not a particularly funny joke but the lolz are obv supposed to occur in the intersection between saying something vile about the most unexpected/most undeserving target.

you just can't pull off a joke like that on a medium like twitter, imo.

Understatement of ever. The only thing that works on Twitter is self-promotion.

I'm LOVIN all the straight, white dudes who are all offended about the Onion's apology

The only thing that works on Twitter is self-promotion.

no, that's not true, but it's a medium where persona and authorial voice can be tricky

appreciate the quickness/sincerity/gravity of the onion's apology

but children are the third rail of american anything, everybody should know better than to joke about children

I'm LOVIN all the straight, white dudes who are all offended about the Onion's apology

― kate78, Monday, February 25, 2013 12:56 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

now i know yall be lovin this shit right here

ilx is super good at getting offended about stuff

Weird how people pick and choose what offends them in the Onion. I'm sure they've made fun of children before in far more offensive a manner than this twitter drive-by.

well, again, part of the problem is that twitter doesn't really provide any adequate, or controllable, context for the tweeter. if your feed was a 1000 "anne hathaway sux i hate that bitch" tweets then i can see how that particular joke popped into the tweeter's mind.

the apology is not enough. if the onion wants to make this right they need to kill the offending employee

I'm LOVIN all the straight, white dudes who are all offended about the Onion's apology

I love that straight, white dudes and lesbians of color all had their opportunity to bond getting super butthurt over this episode.

has that kid ever done anything particularly cunty? like was she being divaish at the time

is there any other context than the send-up of vapid and catty entertainment industry tweeting

seems 100% clear that the object of the joke was wannabe inside-hollywood bitchiness, but i'm not a dolt so

also seems quite a bit over the line in a basic "no rough stuff about kids" unspoken rule kind of way.

case closed!

yeah pretty much.

though it's still an interesting "times we live in" kind of episode!

I'm sure they've made fun of children before in far more offensive a manner than this twitter drive-by.

This remains a high water mark for The Onion in both tastelessness and hilarity.

Seems obvious that the joke is that she is the farthest thing from a bad kid, a total innocent. It's pretty much boilerplate irony. Better or worse than Gawker's sleazy rundown of all the not child friendly swag in her gift bag.

also sorta funny (not haha funny) that if the object of the joke was at least in part the weird rage people direct at celebrities for no good reason then that rage kinda got turned on the onion itself.

let's not overlook the dark power a c-bomb still holds

Naked Condoms (6 pack, $20.00). Shouldn't Quvenzhané Wallis' introduction to prophylactics be with "the finest condoms in the world"?

Bonita Platinum Tequila ($99.00). This premium tequila (manufactured by a company partially owned by Xzhibit) is distilled five times before bottling, making it smooth enough for even a 9-year-old's sensitive palate.

Etc.

also that link is totally hilarious and sorta the same genre of joke--pulled offed infinitely better.

This remains a high water mark for The Onion in both tastelessness and hilarity.

― Zero Dark 33⅓: The Final Insult (Eric H.), Monday, February 25, 2013 1:11 PM (49 seconds ago) Bookmark

this one's my fav, they took it down from the site more than 10 years ago but i never forgot:

http://www.petting-zoo.net/~deadbeef/archive/1687.html

"Dying 13-Year-Old Gets His Wish,
Will Pork Janet Jackson."

One of the infamous headlines to actual attract legal menace.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/pedophile-nervous-for-first-day-of-school,2519/

It's about a pedophile!!!!!

!!!!!!

lol

feel like the amount of times they've properly dropped the ball like this in nearly 20 years and x thousand articles is... remarkably low, really

(25 years if you count the paper but I don't really know much about that tbh)

"an apology is not enough!" mode which is social-justice-web for "I'm glad to have another thing to talk at length about"

huge otm.

The Onion's job is to produce shocking, sometimes tasteless humor, so firing someone for going past the boundary of good taste would be a bit unfair. If you're going to fire anyone, fire the whole company.

i feel like this seriously dents their credibility as a news org

guys you can't have an opinion about this if you're a white dude

eric's link has me in stitches

anyway this was obv over the line, they apologized, goole otm

It's when I get to this line -- "Discovered strangled with a length of nylon cord on Jan. 4, reported to the police Jan. 15, and finally investigated two days ago" -- that I lose it.

goes on maybe a liiiiittle too long but the conceit is great

guys you can't have an opinion about this if you're a white dude

― Matt Armstrong, Monday, February 25, 2013 2:01 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark

holy shit a white dude won't be able to talk about something on the internet

taking down white privilege one twitter firestorm at a time

on the internet no one knows you're a white dude

alyssa rosenberg over at thinkprogress has a good take on this whole situation, maybe someone could link to it for me? (i'm on my wonky phone)

alyssa: http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2013/02/25/1633981/why-seth-macfarlane-and-the-onions-jokes-about-quvenzhane-wallis-are-so-gross/
freddie: http://lhote.blogspot.com/2013/02/actually-onions-tweet-and-mcfarlanes.html

freddie's on the right track i think; i still think the onion tweet was over the line but it's at least smart in a way mcfarlane's work will never be mistaken for.

Baratunde R. Thurston
I missed the Oscars last night, and so I missed the live tweeting, and so I missed The Onion's tweet about Quvenzhané Wallis (just use google if you don't know what i'm talking about). I've been flooded with questions about what they were thinking and why didn't I stop it, and "SERIOUSLY BARATUNDE YOU ARE BLACK HOLLA AT YOUR BOYS WTF!!??"

First, I haven't worked there since May so don't KNOW anything about this incident from an insider perspective. I'm not a spokesperson. I'm not an advocate or defender. I'm not their official black friend. I'm just writing this as ME though I'm clearly in a position to have some perspective since I tweet hard and used to do so with/at The Onion and do/love comedy and satire and also amazing child actors.

Second, I think I understand the underlying target of the joke: The Onion largely satirizes media and the general public. Everyone fawning over a clearly lovely and innocent little girl presents an opportunity to go the opposite direction with something contrasting and clearly false. It was also a take on tabloid media extremism. (I'm remembering the headline about the media's struggles in covering Obama's double homicide) but it was an extremely high risk move and missed that target by WIDE margin. Limited upside. HORRIBLE downside.

It wasn't necessary and was loaded with horrible language. In the context of what I've read about Seth McFarlane's jokes, I feel especially bad for Wallis and her family who won't "get" or care what the comedic idea was and only know that some comedy news organization called their little girl a disgusting, sexist name. It just comes across as mean. Intention does matter, and based on my time there, I'm sure the intent was not, "Hey let's call this little girl a cunt. Ha. Ha." However, RECEPTION and context matter as well, and this utterly failed in that regard.

I'm glad The Onion removed the tweet (which BTW for that outlet is a massive massive decision).

Also FYI, this is not some new practice of "Baratunde Tries To Explain Place He No Longer Works At," and due to time constraints and other priorities, I'm unlikely to get into back and forth commentary beyond this post for now. I don't like explaining jokes. I don't like overly deconstructing art in general or The Onion in particular, but this was an extraordinary situation, and I wanted to share some of my thoughts and try to address the scores of questions people have been asking me.

Also, I believe the children are the future.

If you're going to fire anyone, fire the whole company.

― pun lovin criminal (polyphonic), Monday, February 25, 2013 6:55 PM (54 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes please

lol I thought you might be into that!

http://www.theonion.com/articles/man-just-going-to-grab-guitar-and-old-fourtrack-go,20682/

hahahahaha

there's a thread for that, right?

i figured lex might like that one

Listen: 'Miles Between (Song For Sarah)' by Tom Ruskin

In addition to his guitar and analog recording equipment, Ruskin said he is bringing for lyrical inspiration several books of classic poetry, the thematic content of which he will badly misinterpret and bastardize while writing the words for his unbelievably shitty songs.

Ruskin added that he plans to grow a beard during his sojourn so he will look especially pretentious and annoying when he returns from making his laughably bad album.