The Onion story is about how Congress is holding a group of schoolchildren hostage for $12 trillion cash. Apparently the tweets actually got some people worried that the article and accompanying picture (of John Boehner and Harry Reid (in a ski mask) holding a 4 year old at gunpoint, with the caption “If the money is not delivered by this evening, members of Congress say they will shoot a new child every hour on the hour.”) were real.
Capitol Police spokeswoman Sgt. Kimberly Schneider released this statement:
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!
First they got China to bite, now the Capitol Police! Those guys are freaking hilarious!
To be honest, this thing just makes me think that the Onion isn’t funny anymore. I used to read it all the time, but they’ve lost it. Congress wanting to build a new dome (stadium) - funny. People holding kids hostage at gun point? Not so much.
The whole thing started with their twiiter feed, too, which is too short for some people to get the joke. Here it is:
That’s it. The joke isn’t fleshed out there - no further detail because it’s twitter. I got the joke, but I’m familiar with The Onion. Not everybody is. Add in word of mouth - which screws up the message and the original very mediocre joke, even by the The Onion’s standards - and way too many people are going to get a garbled third and fourth hand story that the Capital building is being evacuated and children are at risk. The damn joke is not funny or obvious enough for people who get a third hand retelling to realize that it is even is a joke.
That’s why we have this little tempest in a teapot. The Onion isn’t as good at its schtick as it used to be, it’s even less funny when you read it on twitter, and it loses almost all comedy when you try to relate their stories to your friends.
I’m not really saying that. What I am saying is that anybody who looks down on people who have never heard of The Onion is a moron, or at least an irredeemable “hipster”. As far as most people know, The Onion might as well be the University of Georgetown’s newspaper, because they’ve never read either publication or even know the names.
I didn’t find the Onion story offensive, just mediocre comedy, but I’m not surprised this happened. Twitter is a bad way to get news, but too many people do it.
I don’t see any reason to pit the DC police. I don’t see any evidence that they ever believed the Onion story. All that they did is tell the public that the story wasn’t true. So Snoboarder Bo’s OP is just plain wrong. The DC police were not “suckered”. His own links lead to statements by the DCPD saying to disregard the Onion story. Hell, the quote in his OP says that. How the Hell is that “suckered”?
As satire, I think it is great: Congress holds America’s future hostage (in that children our oftend described as our future) unless they get 12 trillion dollars. People saying it’s not funny seem to be missing the point that satire doesn’t always have to be funny, it is using absurd fiction to point out absurd realities.
Also, the Capitol Police didn’t get taken in, it sounds like their pissed off that they got a bunch of stupid phone calls from people asking what the hell was going on.
Just so everyone knows, phrases like “continuing to investigate” and “are monitoring the situation” are government lingo for “I’m going to forget all about this until someone brings it up again.”
Where a normal person would say “Let’s move on with our lives”, the government says “we’re looking into the issue.”
The story premise is great, the execution not so much. IMHO the story spent too much time talking about the hostage taking and not enough discussing the demands, where I think the parallelism is stronger. If I were writing it I would just have one or two sentences setting up the scene and the rest concerning the hostage negotiations.
Also the Capitol Police are not they regular police for DC, the Capiol Police are the cops for the Capitol and some other federal buildings, they don’t have much else to do until they have to help some intern get another dead hooker out of his boss’ office.
Well, there are a ton of people suddenly following “Quickster” (the new Netflix Company for DVDs). Problem is, “Quickster” on Twitter was already owned by some stoner dude guy.
this stunt was stupid. The first tweet was no more than “BREAKING: Witnesses reporting screams and gunfire heard inside Capitol building.” Even coming from the onion, that would still make me go . It’s not until twenty minutes after that first odd tweet that they actually link to the article so you can understand how the joke works.
It’s no better than:
FREE BEER!!!, now that I have your attention blahblahblahblah
What he said. And I don’t think the police got suckered - and if they did, it’s not that funny. I think this is the kind of thing they have to look into even considering the source. And the joke was badly executed by The Onion. I know who they are, I follow them on Twitter, and the first tweet does not hint that it’s a joke. That first tweet (unlike the stuff that followed a few minutes later) is not like “Congress threatens to leave DC” or “Harry Potter books spark rise in Satanism.” Those things are transparently ridiculous. It was confusing enough that I checked one or two real news sites to make sure it was a gag. Of course I saw it was and then forgot about it until I saw other people were looking into it more seriously.
Don’t you understand? If you tell a joke nobody gets, that means you’re hilarious! The fact nobody gets it means you’re so much smarter than they are, you can trick them with your humor and biting satire and cunning wit.
Especially if your entire stock-in-trade is telling people how stupid they are. If that’s the case, your only option is to tell jokes that, ideally, only you get, because everyone else in life is a drooling moron who is incapable of realizing your tenth recycling of “Very Special Forces Sent To Iraq” is funny. Maybe next month you’ll have a hilarious story about a guy stuck in an abusive relationship but he has a van and is male, so that’s OK. Hilarious!
. It’s not until twenty minutes after that first odd tweet that they actually link to the article so you can understand how the joke works.