I feel kinda stupid right now. Today is the first time it ever occurred to me that WWN is supposed to be funny. Is that right?
Now, I’ve always realized the stories ridiclous. But I’ve always thought that the paper’s readers actually believed the nonsense within its pages.
Ive never read it before, and before today, I dont think Ive even opened one since I was a kid. Ive seen the front page every now and then, and I always think to myself, “Who buys this crap!?” But I thought the people that did buy it, actually believe it. There are a lot of people who will believe anything: UFOs, that Crossing Over guy, satan’s face at any disaster, conspiracy theories, demons hovering over Somalia, Jesus’s face in my soup, virgin Mary on my stained office window, the great moon landing hoax, Scientology… people will believe anything!
But today I actually opened one up. I don’t know why. And there was a picture of Michael Jackson’s face with a Mr. Universe body! At that point I started thinking, “Was this thing the original Onion?” So I looked further to discover an article about an alien in NM who was arrested for DUI in a flying saucer and another one that suggested aliens were visiting Earth in search of good headache medicine. These sound way too funny for even the quackiest whack-job to believe.
So anyway, is WWN comedy like the Onion? Has it always been that way?
Or is it published for the ignorant and gullible who actually believe this stuff?
It’s absolutely supposed to be comedy, onion-style, and, as far as I know, always has been.
Having said that, there are people who have been taken in by certain articles at times; there are several pages in snopes devoted to the WWN and its contents. They had an article earlier this year about a guy who had supposedly made millions on the stock market, then claimed he was from the future, which took in a few people.
The owner of the newspaper freely admits that he publishes any and all wacky, wild stories that people will send in. Just send him a story that offers up the supposition that penguins are actually alien life forms, and watch him go to work on it.
He, frankly, doesn’t seem to care whether people believe it or not. He puts it out there, makes his bucks, and lets people believe as they will.
My mom, for one, believed way too much of that crap!
Just because somethings in the WWN doesn’t necessarily mean it’s untrue; it’s more like they don’t really care whether something’s true or not as long as it makes a good story—the more outrageous, the better.
A few weeks ago, their cover story was about Saddam and Osama’s gay wedding. Saddam was the one wearing a dress. (And here I would have expected Osama to be Saddam’s bitch! :D)
The WWN is certainly way more entertaining than the other supermarket tabloids, which mostly focus on celeb gossip. Give me aliens and Bigfoot any old time!
Is Weekly World News in black and white? If so, I think there was a pic of Sadaam Husein and Osama Bin Laden with a shaved monkey. The caption, if I recall correctly, read the ‘couple’ had adopted the animal.
I was this close to picking it up and reading it while in line and decided I’d better not. What two consenting adults do with a shorn primate is none of my business.
I love reading WWN, but it’s gotten so expensive lately that I’ve been reading only while waiting at the checkout. Didn’t it used to be 75 cents? I think it’s $2.75 now, or something similar.
My favorite cover photo was the one about a lady suing a taxidermist for the horrible job he did stuffing her pet cat. I don’t know why, but the picture of that grotesquely stuffed cat just cracked me up.
I used to read it for fun in university and discovered that one of the guys in my circle of friends met all of the characteristics of being a space alien (and ya know, that really explained his personality).
I did once find a story that has some truth to it about a mute teenager who was found lost in Quebec or Toronto - and I had previously heard the story on the news. Now that shocked me (ie find a story with truth!)
My personal favourite story was about a mainframe computer in the Andes (don’t all of these stories occur in the Andes!) that was possessed by the devil. People who used a terminal attached to it would be found sitting at their keyboards with blank eyes and mouth agape. And here I thought people with those characteristics were just typical MS users!
WWN and The National Enquirer have the same publisher. The story is that they put al their “real” stuff in the NE, and save the wacky, far-out stuff for WWN.
Actually, what happened is that when the Inquirer went to all-color, the publisher still had the B&W printing presses around. Since they were already there, the WWN really didn’t cost much to put out, just paper and ink. But all the staff “reporters” were working on NI, so they threw the rejected stories into WWN.
It developed its now-familiar story style over time as they found that’s what sold best. So what you see today is what the readership demands. The distribution of that readership between norinew’s mom and Dinsdale’s housemates is unknown.
Supposedly the folks at The National Enquirer have had to have their offices soundproofed because of the gales of laugher coming from the offices of WWN next door. Me thinks the guys that write for the WWN are on some gooooooooood drugs!
