Backpage ad in "the Onion" - WTF?

Cafe Society
#1

I happened to be perusing a print copy of “the Onion” during lunch at my local corner diner this afternoon. I was skimming the back pages advertisements and saw something that completely puzzled me. I couldn’t find it in the online edition, which makes me think that it wasn’t a spoof, but a genuine ad. Anyway, the gist of it is:

“The Official Oasis Listening Party.” The band Oasis (remember them? Over-rated, posteuring mid-90s band? Had a couple of forgettable, derivative hits?) have a new record coming out, and some club is having the “official listening party” for it.

So, there has to be an ‘official party’ in order to listen to a new CD??? WTF? This is the poorest, lamest way of trying to generate hype for a new release I’ve ever heard of. If someone (I doubt highly that I will ever purchase it myself) buys the CD and listens to it, will it be a lesser experience, because it wasn’t listened to in an “official” capacity? And if some other club has the nerve to play the CD that night, should the attendees of that party feel somehow like lesser people because they weren’t at the “official” listening party?

It’s a small thing, I know. And yet, my esteem for “the Onion” has slipped a little because of it. I always relied on this paper to mercilessly mock & lampoon contrived, pseudo-hipster crapfests such as this, not promote them.

#2

Googlin’ it, it’s real- October 2 at the Professor’s Loft, 2nd Avenue, NYC.

#3

Have you ever read their AV Club?

#4

Yes, and in particular I like reading “the Hater”, a column that usually trashes celeb-worshipping, hype-mongering inanities like this. In fact, that is why I find this ad so peculiar to be in the Onion.

#5

I really have no idea what you’re upset about. Listening parties like this are not a new thing, and it’s a paid ad that has nothing to do with the content of the Onion. Usually the back page of the Onion is a full-page fashion ad with a girl taking her clothes off. I have nothing against those, but are you saying that’s somehow more in keeping with the principles of the Onion? It’s a paper you get for free and they pay for it by running ads that are supposed to appeal to their target readers. If anything, I’m amused to learn that they think people who read the Onion take Oasis seriously. But with irony these days, you never know.