From what I gather, they invested in Onion News Network for IFC, and when that got canceled relatively quickly, they didn't risk online-only distribution. Maybe 2011 was too early to pivot to video? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_News_Network
My favorite bit, still stuck in my head whenever I see politicians from both parties rush to the scene of a protest or whatever, is "New Live Poll Lets Pundits Pander To Viewers In Real Time": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFpK_r-jEXg
They may also have been victimized by the scandal where Facebook was lying about the engagement that short-form videos generated over other kinds of content, leading several content producers into bankruptcy or near bankruptcy through loss of ad revenue when they pivoted towards it.
I don’t know who Ben Collins is and at a first read of his bio I’m not really sure who would. My first instinct is that this is one of those terminally online things, like how I kept reading references to “Taylor Lorenz” as if she were the devil incarnate and when I finally looked into it she was just another pretty boring journalist.
Since you asked, a genuine answer. I suspect it's because Ben Collins is a veteran of the left-wing "disinformation" beat, most recently for MSNBC until he lost that gig -- so the admittedly cryptic parent comment is positing that as a seasoned culture warrior, Collins will likely apply The Onion as a tool in the culture war.
The Onion's comedic point-of-view used to be less predictable, but as the culture war as progressed, so too has The Onion's voice, and it's a more reliable voice for the left these days. If you rue that trend, for whatever reason, Collins provides little reason to imagine things will change.
Ben Collins, the guy who got suspended from MSNBC for criticizing Elon Musk too hard? Upset Nate Silver because he criticized him too hard? Upset Matt Taibbi for making fun of him for doing PR work for a billionaire? I think he’s perfect for the job honestly.
If _MSNBC_ thinks he’s too overtly partisan and not up to journalistic standards, I’d say Collins fails to clear the absolute lowest bar in news media ethics.
Boy do I have to warn you about The Onion’s content then.
Also if you think being partisan is the lowest bar instead of “report the truth” or “be accurate and fair” then that tells me enough already about your values.
I don't know any of the context around that tweet, but The Onion has obviously chosen the most innocent, blameless celebrity they could think of to make sure it's a clear joke to everyone, right? Like finding the skinniest person and calling them obese.
The writer of that article seems to have still somehow misunderstood and come to the conclusion that The Onion actually hates Quvenzhané Wallis. I wonder if they really don't get it, or if they're just sort of performatively not getting it for the outrage article.
On the contrary, the context was that the kid was getting a lot of very stupid criticism already. It’s certainly why they attempted the joke.
I don’t think anything about that situation was somehow off limits or immune to satire, they just didn’t pull off the joke. It’s not like the kid was likely to have seen the joke, so no worries there. The problem is that when you use language like that and you’re not even funny, you’re operating at the Andrew Dice Clay level of comedy. That should inspire suicidal ideation in any comedian (who isn’t Andrew Dice Clay… I guess…).
They also seem to think their Diamond Joe Biden character made real Joe Biden too popular, and their self-seriousness about this is making it hard for them to do anything political.
You're clearly not alone in this, but I never realised they even did videos, fwiw. Similar era I was enjoying great content on the site, and it just sort of faded but didn't disappear, from my perspective, so I don't know to what extent it's purely about rise and fall of video really.
(I did just watch the very good MacBook Wheel one though.)
