While the other supermarket tabloids, the National Enquirer and so on, are now full of celebrity gossip and little else, the Weekly World News still maintains the grand tradition of surreal, alternate-universe whoppers about Bigfoot, Elvis, angels, space aliens, the Bat Boy – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weekly_World_News
Obviously a lot of people are buying and, presumably reading this stuff – but I wonder, how many people actually believe any of it? (It would be logically impossible for any sane person to believe all of it – there are too many contradictory assumptions between different stories of this kind.)
And, if they don’t believe it, why do they buy it? Entertainment value?
OK, not really, but what the WWN does is sprinkle some crazy assed Big Foot type stuff in the middle of a bunch of News of the Weird things so you never quite know which is BS and which isn’t. It’s the best reading out there. I don’t think that anyone actually believes it, but man it makes for great reading.
Alright, I’ll admit it. I buy it every so often. Probably about once a year. I think the last one I bought was because the cover story was about aliens coming to earth because they couldn’t get enough of Krispy Kreme donuts. Now that’s comedy. How could I resist buying it?! I just see it as a humor magazine. It’s like people taking “The Onion” seriously.
I always thought it was just like MAD magazine for grownups.
I never buy it.
My grandmother buys them all up, though. It’s very, very difficult to tell if she’s being facetious when she insists they are all true. She’s a mischeivous Frenchwoman from the north!
I can attest to one story being true. Long ago my family knew a man whos wife gave birth to a 12+ pound baby (she was a big lady, but still- ouch!) and they had a little story about it in WWN. I have no idea how it came about that he got in their tabloid (I was pretty young at the time), but some of my family talked about when it came out. It had the story and some quotes, and a couple of photos, as well.
I saw the baby when it was about 8 months old. He was huge. Looked like a 2 year old to me.
Anyway, I think that even the stuff that’s true is a little exaggerated. It’s like it has it’s own format with the way each story is organized and laid out, and the tone of the quotes. The quotes seem to lead the storylines more than in other kinds of journalism. Not sure if that makes sense, but I’m going to leave it.
My mother-in-law. ::sigh:: The lady is dumber than a sack full of hammers, Og bless her.
She came home from the market last time we were there and was unloading her groceries and piped up, “Oh! I bought a newspaper while I was out!” And pulls out a copy of WWN – a newspaper, she called it, by all that’s unholy. It had the World’s Fattest Family on the front – Momma, Daddy, Junior and their kitty (the World’s Fattest Cat, natch).
“Look at these poor people,” she said, pointing to the extremely-obviously-Photoshopped family.
“Uh huh,” said my son and I.
“And look at this!” she continued, turning to an article about women who have had heel-implants for that permanantly-high-heeled look. “I think this plastic surgery thing has just gone too far.”
This was too much for my son, finally, who said, “Grandma. I think some of these stories are made up. A lot of them, actually. Most of them.”
“Oh.” She was clearly astounded at the idea that this ‘newspaper’ might have false stuff in it. “You don’t think that would work with the heels?”
My sister reads WWN for the entertainment, like the Onion. We bought the new book for her for Christmas, and it was very self-aware in its silliness; it seemed to be to be more obviously a joke than it used to be.
I once read a fun article about the staff of WWN in a magazine; it was great! There aren’t a lot of writers, of course, but they are real journalists, from prestigious schools (Princeton etc.). Of course, once you work for the WWN you’re basically unemployable anywhere else, so they pay very well. They have a ball making stuff up and printing anything anyone calls them with (“A dinosaur ate my car!” “Cool, tell us about it.”) They’re just having a fun crazy time.
A few days back, Fark carried a link to Yahoo News’ syndication of WWN. It was about a son and mother from France who unknowingly date each other on the internet and then have a shock when they meet in real life. Unless you pay attention to the headers and recognize ‘Weekly World News’ on the Yahoo News page, you’re likely to think that this is a real-life odd story. Jay Leno did. He recounted it in his monologue the next might as a bizarre true story.
Every issue of the Weekly World News carries a disclaimer that the stories are fictional and that “the reader should suspend disbelief for the sake of enjoyment.” The stories are just weird for weirdness’s sake, and the headlines never fail to amuse me (recent favorite: “Here comes the Human Slinky!”
I just happen to have a copy of the WWN at my desk here, and that is indeed what it says on the inside front cover.
We used to think it was just a stupid rag for the mindless, too, until we had to buy the issue with the murderin’ kitty on the front cover, took it home, read it cover-to-cover, and howled with laughter at the articles. No, we don’t believe it, but it sure does entertain us.
When I was growing up we used to pick up the WWN occasionally, and my grandmother used to buy every issue. They seemed to take themselves more seriously back then (mid to late 80’s). They’re just so much more crazy over-the-top now.
I would dearly love to get a job with them. I could make up crazy stuff about giant iguanas crawling out of my toilet, eating my dog, stealing my pot stash, and being discovered the next morning sprawled on my kitchen floor surrounded by empty M&M bags all day long.
I used to date a guy whose family thought pro-wrestling was real, but I never tried them out with a WWN; I’m not sure they could read.
