Why didn’t you tell us it was a joke!
I guess this isn’t the only place where you have to use smilies for even the most obvious jokes.
Should anybody really be offended by this?
“D.C.-based photographer Dave Stroup tweeted: “Not sure what’s worse, people not knowing the Onion is fake, or that it seemed believable that Members of Congress would take kids hostage.””
The first tweet was stupid… not really dangerous but not really funny at all. Then they got into the groove with the 2nd tweet and beyond. Overall not the onion’s best work, but pretty amusing I suppose.
Agreed. There’s no joke in the first tweet at all and seemed designed solely to upset people. Poor form. But the rest of them are brilliant.
No joke in the first one, agreed.
On the other hand, it’s the freaking Onion.
More so it’s the format of tweeting. The first sentence of course isn’t funny without the rest of the article. So, you have to look at the sender of the tweet and wait for the rest. Without doing that, you’re stuck in tweet-consciousness.
This is literally unbelievable.
It happens here, too: 242 posts, and not one of them seems to recognize that the OP was all a joke.
I think it would have worked better if they had just started with the second tweet. That said, the pictures are hilarious.
To be fair, your screen name is not The Onion.
I entered the thread thinking: Which Republican is it this time? I’m actually saddened that I’ve become convinced Republicans are so out of their minds at this point that they’re capable of something like this.
Castigate me all you want, but I’m sure I’m not the only one this occurred to when reading the thread title.
I have no sympathy for people here. I can understand people not knowing The Onion, but if they don’t know it, why would they be getting their twitter feeds? I find it highly unlikely that anyone getting their twitter feeds wouldn’t be aware that they’re satire. So I don’t know how anyone would have found out unless they either signed up, and thus knew they were satire, or heard from someone who had signed up, who would have been able to tell them it was satire.
And even still, if you’re not in the Capitol, you can, and should, corraborate any breaking news. And if you are in the Capitol, chances are you either would have heard the shots yourself or otherwise would have gotten instructions from someone shortly after such an event took place.
And, really, as the quote in the second post says, I really don’t get how anyone would actually think that congressmen would hold children hostage. I can sort of get people thinking they’re self-serving or assholes or whatever… but not holding people hostage. If you actually think a congressman would do that, I think your bias has reached to the point of ridiculousness.
If one has to go by a screen name or URL in order to recognize that something is a joke, it’s got to be a pretty bad joke.
More and more items by The Onion are falling into this category.
Not every satire has to be funny to be successful. The Onion is a satire rag, not a humor rag. People (even those who know what The Onion is and does) reacting with cries of, “Not funny!” are still fucking missing the point. Was it still a successful satire, regardless of its innate hilarity content? Yes? Good, we agree. Shut the fuck up, please.
And I’ve known The Onion was a satirical newsfaker for more than 10 years (since high school). No sympathy for those who don’t get it. Anyway, if everyone got it, it wouldn’t be as fun. Because jokes that everyone gets right away are tailored to be understood by the lowest common denominator.
Disclaimer: I am completely of the opinion that it was an obvious joke and anyone who didn’t get it or was outraged by it should just shut the fuck up
You don’t have to follow a Twitter user to be subjected to their tweets. If someone else you follow retweets it, it shows up in your timeline. That’s a plausible reason for unsuspecting people to have seen it.
You got my vote. (In fact, I would say the Onion is weakest when it strives too much for humor, and the humor then undermines the satire.) A lot of people don’t even seem to realize that the ultimate purpose of satire is not the gut-level yuks.
If there’s a secular version of “Amen, sister!” I’m saying it. The whole point of satire is that it is dangerously close to reality. It’s pointing out ridiculousness without necessarily being funny. Sometimes it is phenomenally funny. Not always
Another example: the Brass Eye paedophilia special where a "Peter File"was killed in a giant wicker phallus -this was in part based on a real life attack on a paediatrician’s house in Wales. The subject matter of the satire is quite often not funny. Frankly, it’s a miracle that satire ever manages to be funny.
I don’t follow The Onion, but if I turned on my phone (which displays the most recent tweet on my home screen) and saw one of those tweets, even knowing it’s from The Onion, I wouldn’t have guessed it was a joke. That just doesn’t sound like something you’d joke about. And then, as others have said, once it becomes second and third hand news, the part about it coming from The Onion gets forgotten.
Looking at some of their tweets, I see:
Burger King Introduces New Healthy Deep-Steamed French Fries
Aquatic Turtle Discovers Limits Of Tank For 43,000th Time
Panicked ER Doctor Calls 911
Those (and all the others) have articles attached to them, or so I assume, there are links.
Then, out of nowhere I see “BREAKING: Witnesses reporting screams and gunfire heard inside Capitol building.” No link, no nothing. Like I said, even if I followed them, I’d still assume that was real. The next one was “BREAKING: Capitol building being evacuated. 12 children held hostage by group of armed congressmen.” Which still, to me, seems real. After that came "Congress Takes Group Of Schoolchildren Hostage " which finally had an article linked to it. I didn’t read it, but I’m going to assume at that point it was clear it was a joke, I also have no idea how fast the tweets came.
Overall, I’d say it was a stupid joke and probably over the line. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that if this wasn’t The Onion and just some random person they might be in some hot water for all the trouble they caused.
It’s not satire though. Where is the joke when you have a direct line to 3.1 million people and you say
“BREAKING: Witnesses reporting screams and gunfire heard inside Capitol building.”
followed by
"Congress Takes Group Of Schoolchildren Hostage " with no explanation at all. If Bob Saget called you up and said there was a shooting at your child’s school would you just write it off because he’s a comedian and therefore nothing he says can ever be true?
Now, this would be different if the first tweet contained the link to the article…but it didn’t. Also, like I said before, I don’t know how quickly these came. If these three tweets (the third one had the link) came in a matter of minutes, that would be better.
Absolutely not! The satire comes from your credulity factor always being set at maximum. I for one would be having a closer look at the initial tweet and where it came from. CNN or the BBC and I would still be thinking about getting some verification from somewhere else. The Onion - it’s probably not real. Even from a legitimate news source you should be enabling your grain of salt generator.
And it so is satire. I repeat, satire is not necessarily joking. Often the subject matter is deadly serious. To descend into jokes can be just as inappropriate.