God bless the goddamn Onion

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.

at the library without headphones, someone please tell me the song is as great as i'm imagining

the only onion thing that ever actually kinda offended me was that one where they made fun of weird al's parents dying -- way unnecessary and mean imo.

Rosenberg's piece was laying it on a little thick at the end.

"baby can feel daddy kicking" was the worst previous one I could recall

the thing is its not too different from weird al's sicker jokes. so it feels not-so-horrible in that sense.

I think the problem with Seth MacFarlane's humor and The Onion's joke are both parodic in a way that assumes familiarity with institutions or source media, but they're consumed or delivered by audiences that aren't aware.

There is such a thing as crossing the line within that parody, and there's bad parody. I think that twitter commentary on the Oscars isn't deep enough to throw out such a barb about a child actress, and it might fall flat regardless. MacFarlane's issue is that his parody isn't that good without the shock value, and without the parodic understanding it is too shocking. So basically the humor and shock rely on each other to a point where it's so weak it just sucks.

I mean, then there's the "haha, in the future we KNOW Seth is gay!" joke that I saw in gawker's lowlights reel. I mean, is this supposed to be commentary on people who think calling people gay is funny, or is it just "hah hah, you are gay?" I think the former is nonexistent without acknowledging the latter's appeal, which is nonexistent to me.

the onion joke could have worked, i think, in the context of a lengthy gossip column that created a proper context. the problem with ironic tweets in general is someone just retweets the one, and other people see it without the surrounding conversation. i'm basically afraid to make jokes there.

yeah -- i follow onion on twitter, and a lot of times the lines they excerpt from articles when linking them aren't as funny out of context until i click and read the whole thing

sorry, should have posted half of that to the oscars thread, but I really can't stop posting everywhere that macfarlane is bad

I mean, then there's the "haha, in the future we KNOW Seth is gay!" joke that I saw in gawker's lowlights reel. I mean, is this supposed to be commentary on people who think calling people gay is funny, or is it just "hah hah, you are gay?" I think the former is nonexistent without acknowledging the latter's appeal, which is nonexistent to me.

― ☠ ☃ ☠ (mh), Monday, February 25, 2013 4:49 PM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

when macfarlane hosted a comedy central roast, there were a hundred jokes about "lol this guy who loves showtunes is clearly on the down low," and he seemed to happily play along with it, so he prob just thinks that's a go-to way to make fun of himself

I think the problem with Seth MacFarlane's humor and The Onion's joke are both parodic in a way that assumes familiarity with institutions or source media, but they're consumed or delivered by audiences that aren't aware.

You realize this is basically the argument humorless old idiots make when claiming that "young people get all their news from The Daily Show", right? People who read The Onion are aware that there is a larger culture which The Onion is parodying, I assure you.

I think he meant that the Onion is often taken out of context, with a single article or something being read by an audience that isn't familiar with the Onion's status as satiric paper of record. And that these people may not also be aware that the target of satire is, uh, worthy of being targeted? Which is just another way of saying they don't get the joke, the joke doesn't even exist for them to get. "Bitchy celebrity gossip Twitter" isn't a thing, it barely registers as a meaningful string of words. So, double humorless whammy, the Onion is read seriously, AND finding out that it's satire STILL doesn't make it funny. Maybe this is just a strawman propped up by smug progressive internet young people, but I'm pretty sure that there are people that find out that this isn't true, and still conclude that there's nothing funny about it, at all. You just don't joke about some stuff. Then you have this situation, where people DO get what the satirical target is (bitchy celebrity gossip Twitter), and still think that calling 9yo girls cunts is pretty atrocious.

the people who're maddest about it (among whom, nobody'll be surprised to learn, are people I dig a lot and consider friends) are going into the "an apology is not enough!" mode which is social-justice-web for "I'm glad to have another thing to talk at length about"

haha this is so otm

this tweet was shitty and all but salon.com having like three cover stories on it seems like overkill

The tweet was hilarious, but whoever posted it is an idiot for not anticipating the storm that was sure to follow. It was a joke too sub rosa even for the Onion. I'm sure every one of you has heard, told or retold a joke like that.