| ▲ | pton_xd 4 hours ago |
| It was barely funny when I read the headline a few years ago. Really weird story, I guess I just don't understand the humor at all. I'd rather stop hearing about InfoWars entirely. |
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| ▲ | anon84873628 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| The original goal was to put money in the hands of the Sandy Hook victims without the website continuing on to another set of deplorable owners. |
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| ▲ | themafia 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Alex Jones lives rent free in peoples heads. They mistake a phyrric victory for a real victory. |
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| ▲ | sleepybrett 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | they took everything he owned and are now unraveling all the bullshit tricks he used to hide his assets. Certainly it's more real than phyrric. | | |
| ▲ | themafia an hour ago | parent [-] | | He can own new things. So, other than inconveniencing him slightly, I'm not sure what we've accomplished. | | |
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| ▲ | ocdtrekkie 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Bear in mind buying it to ruin it is a very real public service. Alex Jones was hoping a conservative ally would buy it and then just continue to let him do what he wants. Jokes aside, The Onion is basically spending a giant pile of money to burn the website down. |
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| ▲ | busterarm 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | I remember when The KLF burned a million quid. They were being internally consistent. It was artistically relevant. Most people thought they were insane. Bill Drummond wrote about how it strained his relationship with his kids. You can tell that he regrets it. Personally I think a million bucks to lease a domain name for a year is a really terrible business decision. You might be able to argue that it's going to victims but you could almost certainly just park that money into an interest-bearing account and do better for those victims. But it's also been obvious from the beginning (starting with Jones' own comments) that nobody really gives a shit about these families and they're just props in other peoples' theater show. | | |
| ▲ | BryantD 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The cost seems really high. On the other hand I thought bringing the Onion back as a print comedy newspaper was insane too, so possibly they know things I don’t. There is a business plan here, even if it’s a dumb one. | |
| ▲ | quesera 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | If benefitting the victims is a goal, then clearly sending them money now is more valuable than sending them interest-borne money later. If the victims don't benefit from the money now, they can bear their own interest. Time-value, etc. | |
| ▲ | ocdtrekkie 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I get the impression that beyond the money from the sale, the victims would very much like Alex Jones control of InfoWars to end. This accomplishes both of those things. I don't generally find The Onion that funny, and probably will never visit the new InfoWars, but I'm eternally grateful that they were willing to step in and do this. Because someone had to. A "good business decision" is to let Alex run his show if you buy the brand, but that's still a win for him. Not only would another owner likely allow Alex Jones to continue to operate, but The Onion can truly salt the earth around Alex Jones' business. If they own the InfoWars trademarks... if they own The Alex Jones Show as a trademark? They can potentially shut down Alex Jones' future works if they violate InfoWars' trademarks and intellectual property. They can sue him if he says something defamatory about the new InfoWars. One of the perks here is that The Onion is well-versed in free speech rights, intellectual property rights, and trademark law. They already have lawyers good at this stuff. The Onion can be a truly significant thorn in Jones' side, the way most other outcomes for this could not. I'm guessing the new site won't be that funny, but thankfully I don't really care about the "art". |
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| ▲ | traderj0e 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| The Onion's humor is like that drawing of the angry crying guy wearing a laughing face mask. It's only "funny" if you're pissed off about something. |
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| ▲ | snowwrestler 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Who isn’t pissed off about something in 2026? | | |
| ▲ | traderj0e 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yeah people are, and they do make fun of some things I'm pissed off about too, but that doesn't make it funny. It's an "only-if" relationship. |
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| ▲ | ro_bit 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Finally, wojak invocation on HN | | |
| ▲ | traderj0e 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Proud to be part of this historic moment, took until 2026 but better late than never |
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| ▲ | DonHopkins 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Woo hoo, sounds like some of their jokes landed and you just couldn't take it. Do you only appreciate humor if it's punching down? Do you have any funny jokes about the children who were "killed" at Sandy Hook or the crisis actors who pretended to be their parents and mourn for them that you want to share with the class? | | |
| ▲ | traderj0e 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | That's the thing, their jokes don't land. Idk what the Sandy Hook shooting has to do with this, the Onion has been around for much longer. | | |
| ▲ | shagie 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Idk what the Sandy Hook shooting has to do with this, the Onion has been around for much longer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27No_Way_to_Prevent_This,%27_... > 'No Way to Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens They've reprinted / reposted that article 39 times since 2014 (Sandy Hook was in 2012) Gun violence is something that the editorial board of The Onion feels strongly about. | | |
| ▲ | traderj0e 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Ok so they feel strongly about gun violence, where's the humorous part here? It's a pretty funny headline being used the first time, maybe they were better in 2014. | | |
| ▲ | shagie 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Satire doesn't always have to be "ha ha" funny. They've got plenty of that material. As mass shootings became more and more common as a news satire site they felt that they couldn't continue to keep their heads in the sand and needed to write something about it. They couldn't continue to not write something about the news, and yet they felt they had to write something. Jimmy Kimmel is often Ha Ha funny... and yet https://youtu.be/ruYeBXudsds https://youtu.be/sB0wWEFIr50 https://youtu.be/Z0vLiQLpsc8 When you make jokes about the news, sometimes you have to write about the not ha ha funny, but rather the tragic news instead. This is how The Onion has addressed it. https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-the-onion-became-one-of-th... ( https://archive.is/hEJhg ) > And as mass shootings increasingly became a tragic and appalling feature of the Obama era, it also became a subject that The Onion could not avoid covering all too routinely. “As more and more shootings happened, it became something that—as an organization that comments on the news—we couldn’t not write stories about…and it kept on growing and growing and growing to the point where [the problem of gun violence] just seemed overwhelming.” | | |
| ▲ | traderj0e 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Sounds like what I originally said, it's not actually funny, it's just sad/angry. South Park has some examples of doing satire right. |
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| ▲ | DonHopkins 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | No actually the thing is that their jokes landed well enough to make you dislike them, because the joke's on you. | | |
| ▲ | traderj0e 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | What joke is on me? Some people are downvoting/flagging me, maybe the joke is on them. | | |
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