The Onion buys rightwing conspiracy theory site Infowars with plans to make it ‘very funny, very stupid’
theguardian.com
Here’s Why I Decided To Buy ‘InfoWars’ By Bryce P. Tetraeder, Global Tetrahedron CEO ☞ https://theonion.com/heres-why-i-decided-to-buy-infowars/
And let me say, I really do see it as a family. Much like family members, our brands are abstract nodes of wealth, interchangeable assets for their patriarch to absorb and discard according to the opaque whims of the market. And just like family members, our brands regard one another with mutual suspicion and malice.
🤣
My favorite part of this:
That also sounds like the kind of prank that Cards Against Humanity would pull if they had access to as much cash. I love this so much.
Honestly, considering how much of a clown Alex Jones was, they have their work cut out for them if they want to compete at comedic levels!
Either way, this may be the best news I've heard all year, thank you!
I wonder if this gives them the rights to all of Infowars' library of footage. Maybe they could "keep" Jones as a host by cutting up old clips kinda how South Park did with Isaac Hayes for Chef's last episode.
Up for grabs at the auction were Infowars production rights and materials, the Infowars store, domain names, production equipment and other assets — including a Terradyne armored truck and a Winnebago motor home — that can be purchased in their entirety or in parts, according to the firm, ThreeSixty Asset Advisors. Jones broadcasts from the Austin, Texas, area.
I’ll take the middle third of the Winnebago, just carve it out and drop it on Nick Fuentes’ lawn, thanks.
The “shitter’s full” third I hope.
Considering what The Onion has been able to do with manipulating video for the sake of comedy, I can't wait to see what they do with any of their footage.
I hope they own Jones' likeness to the point where they can give DJs the rights to remix his shouts into something of value.
Train an AI model to produce new shows with him as the host
This just in! I’m turning my frickin’ self gay! I’m selling the supplements that will get you there too! The deep state wants to control us! NO MORE! You’re not gonna get my frickin’ dna to fight in your wars! You’re not gonna push us around!
eats handful of supplements
These Pro-homoerotics are literally the best on the market. I just now took them and I already want to tear my clothes off and throw the cameraman on this table!
Help support InfoWars and fight the deep state! I can’t do this without you guys and now I want to do you guys!
Like this? https://youtu.be/9JRLCBb7qK8?si=sDYZT5z_FlyiMan-
https://youtu.be/9kAEoCHANYY?si=LHq8QiiufT73XKqM
Or my personal favorite
https://youtu.be/KGAAhzreGWw?si=jnhsh4tITA1XR_Qp
One of the few good uses for generative AI I've seen.
They should harness the crazy for good. Make conspiracy theory-sounding stories, but make them factual and get people to take positive action.
"They created chemicals you can inject into the bloodstream that keeps them from getting the Measels."
"The overlords in their golden towers want to tell you who you are and aren't allowed to love."
The vaccine one would probably be better as: “independent thinking researchers developed a means of using your own body’s immune response to prevent diseases with a mere injection. Some of them even refused to patent it. But then the media started lying to you about them, trying to get you to stop accepting these miracles? Why, just so some companies could make more money selling you proprietary snake oil to keep you comfortable while you’re sick.”
Coming from a reformed conspiracy theorist, that was frighteningly good.
Thanks! The trick is to understand the emotions they aim for and the baseline rhetorical tricks.
Conspiracies stem from knowing you’re getting fucked, but that most people are good. It’s an attempt to find explanations when the world feels wrong. Someone did it. You just have to sell the truth in the tone that they’re used to hearing. Especially with vaccines where the truth does sound like a free lunch, until you realize that it’s governments and insurers paying for vaccines and it saves them and the economy money by you not getting sick or needing stronger medicines. These are the two groups that desperately want you to exercise, eat right, and quit smoking
And then there's ones that don't have much of a modern-day effect but are still stupid. My English teacher truly believes that the Titanic was sunk on purpose for insurance purposes.
She also believes that a Secret Service agent might have shot JFK
Those too are an attempt to create order out of a scary and chaotic world. The JFK assassination theories are often used as the textbook example of that fact.
While it is true that JFK’s family was heavily involved in the mob and that he wasn’t the favorite of the out of control CIA, the evidence we have after many eyes on it for decades asserts one thing: a man by the name of Lee Harvey Oswald was an exceptional marksman in his time in the marines, and had a tendency towards political radicalization that wasn’t particularly directed, and so in an attempt to curry favor with the Cuban government (he was a communist but had been disillusioned by the USSR), but without their permission (they would have asked him not to), he hid in a book repository along the route of the presidential motorcade, laid in wait, and when the time came fired two shots directly into the skull of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. He like every successful presidential assassin acted alone and based on political grievances.
And the fact is, that that’s terrifying to a lot of people. One person changed so much with one act. Conspiracy theories here are an attempt to find an alternative explanation for something so jarring. One marine sniper shouldn’t be able to, but the cia or the mob or Cuba or the ussr… A group, conspiring should be able to, and they’re shadowy and hiding the truth…
The fact is that the difference between the Kennedy assassination and the attempted assassinations of trump are of marksmanship and chance, not of conspiracy. Nobody says the Reagan assassin wasn’t working alone because he failed
Big Essential Oil ruining the day again.
This is brilliant. Please send them an email with this idea.
I'm totally for this and I bet it would work, too. We've seen the level of ignorance that went into how people chose to vote. If OnionWars puts up those kinds of stories, along with the occasional article declaring Jones actually still owns InfoWarts and any news stating otherwise is fake, they could ease these nutjobs back to sanity.
I would love this.
Reassemble the MythBusters
The funniest piece is going to be seeing old followers believe it’s still the InfoWars they know and love. It took forever for people to stop eating the onion in large numbers, and it still manages to happen on occasion.
There is opportunity here. Initially, anyway.
I think there's always going to be that group of people. Another example: folks that didn't notice that The Colbert Report was satire.
I thought Glenn Beck was satire. Watched it several times and then one day .. wait, that's not a joke?
Beck sounds batshit. Right there with you.
A part of me actually wished that the Onion would have purchased InfoWars, but in secret, like maybe under a subsidiary corp that has a right-wing sounding name.
They don't change Infowars' branding or anything but the articles become subtly liberal.
Maybe an overt purchase is better but I really want to troll the right.
"Do your swastikas send the right message to your neighbors? Maybe try this instead..."
"Today we celebrate a new addition to the Global Tetrahedron LLC family of brands. "
"Founded in 1999 ... InfoWars has distinguished itself as an invaluable tool for brainwashing and controlling the masses.
...
InfoWars has shown an unswerving commitment to manufacturing anger and radicalizing the most vulnerable members of society—values that resonate deeply with all of us at Global Tetrahedron.
No price would be too high for such a cornucopia of malleable assets and minds. ... a steep bargain: less than one trillion dollars."
I'm absolutely not disagreeing with you; I believe the onion will continue on doing "its thing" and keeping on-brand for both entities. Do exactly what you say and publish articles either believable or outlandish enough to break through to people
I don’t think they have to. People are going to consume it like it’s the same old. Inertia and assumption.
Looks like it's been down since January. Do you think people are still trying it?
I still have OSINT on my podcast roll even though Bazzell quit. Maybe it’ll come back? I’m sure others have done the same.
YESS!
This was not on my bingo card.
Gaetz?
i've just read that quote
Info Wars might actually become credible
Wouldn't that be ironic
Alanis Morrisette plays
https://bsky.app/profile/bencollins.bsky.social/post/3lawdnw4fqk2s
"Tim onion" got an irl lol out of me
OMG i can't stop giggling about it too
Is that a Trump "Tim Apple" reference? I wouldn't have even noticed if you hadn't called it out.
ben also replied saying he'd hold it for knowledge fight, so there's an incredible chance we might see knowledge fight use it at some point.
What’s special about his desk?
They're talking about the infowars desk.
I genuinely don't know how they plan to make a parody of InfoWars that will not be indistinguishable from the original thing.
They’re very, very good at it
I for one am excited to see what they are going to do with it.
The funniest thing to do would be to turn it into either a legitimate leftist new site or a leftist themed nujob conspiracy mill (though I don't know how that would work).
"The rich intentionally causing global warming to make people have to use cars"
Bingo. Slowly turn them onto each other…
The global oil cartel and billionaires such as the Koch family are funding media and politicians to convince you and your neighbors to continue burning oil and using plastics recklessly with zero regard for the fact that they’ve known for decades that this is increasing global temperatures and killing people. It’s right under your noses folks, and they don’t want you to notice. They’re even running secret campaigns on social media to convince you to spend more time hating your neighbors and to convince you to be angry about policies that not only hinder their nefarious plans but grant you the freedom to choose how you get around town while reducing traffic! They’re even boldly lying to your face about this! Look with your eyes! November used to be snowy! Nowadays the fine people of the Midwest are wearing shorts in October and these corporations and cartels are telling you that the climate isn’t changing and that it’s not a problem! [incoherent shirtless screaming]
The Republican party is ripe for conspiracy theory targets.
Epstein had close ties with Trump and his attorney general Bill Barr (whose father hired Epstein to teach at a prestigious private high school without a college degree, where he was known for ogling the high school girls and showing up to parties where underage drinking was happening). The waitresses and hostesses at Trump's Mar a Lago were also regularly recruited to work at Epstein's island. Alex Acosta, the federal prosecutor who agreed to a secret plea deal where Epstein served a slap on the wrist in a local jail instead of real prison was later elevated to Trump's cabinet, as Labor Secretary.
Now, Trump has named another child sex trafficker as his nominee for Attorney General.
There are suspicious ties between the Saudi royal family and key members in Trump's orbit, including his son in law Jared Kushner. Elon Musk has been doing sketchy shit with the Saudis and the Russians, as well. Basically everyone in Trump's circle, including his nominee to be the director of national intelligence, has shady ties with foreign adversaries.
There's lots of other little things about financial profiteering by the Trump folks: an SBA COVID bailout that went to huge businesses, a move to privatize or sabotage the public postal service and the weather service to help the private competition, arbitrary or politically motivated regulations to help certain businesses while hurting others, etc.
I mean, it really wouldn't be hard.
The hard part would be doing it in a way that pulls in the kind of people who listened to Alex Jones.
Yes but slowly and using language they're familiar with. Lure them into it
I'm hoping for something similar to what The Colbert Report used to be.
Well, their work is half done already!
truly the wildest of timelines
Make reality boring again
Fucking awesome. Onion has been hitting it hard lately, and this is just the cherry on top. I am hopeful this makes some chuds question their minds.
For me, the cherry on top is how the "InfoWars" name is still completely apt, for completely different reasons.
Reformatting InfoWars as a serious, unironic branch of the Onion that deals with misinformation would just be great.
That would be hilarious. I’d love for it to wind up just doing serious journalism
Every so often, I see a car with an InfoWars bumper sticker.
I wonder what those people will do?
No idea. Maybe they'll keep it like the Gadsden Flag holdout libertarians? "We were here first" and all that.
Honestly, I was thinking about the people out there with tattoos. There has to be at least one.
I gotta find out what the Knowledge Fight folks have to say about this.
I am waiting for the next episode to drop. Biggest episode ever.
Is Dan the loud one? I've never learned their names, but I'm waiting for him to scream something about them horning in on their territory.
Dan is the guy that knows stuff. Jordan is the loud sidekick comic relief.
Where is Alex Jones on now?
Hasn't Trump appointed him head of media relations, or something equally as stupid?
If Alex Jones becomes press secretary, I'll be convinced that this is all a simulation.
I would love that. The only person on earth less coherent than Trump. Imagine the memes we would get out of that.
This is what I call a master class on starting a soft revolution: you take over a symbol of the opposite ideology, in the most outrageous and ridiculous way, make it known to all, and completely subvert it and deconstruct it, piece by piece, until it stops making any sense to its former self.
Like the right keeps doing with memes!
like this?
and words too. Even words get to mean exactly their antonyms :/
And CNN
Memes come and go too fast for that.
And yet a meme from a decade ago is about to become a government office
Which one?
Doge. Much old. Very beaten into ground
Oh. That one.
Counterpoint, it was already stupid.
Yes, but this time it will be on purpose.
Will anyone visiting know the difference?
Probably depends on whether they see a difference between intentional and unintentional satire.
The onion is a satirical takes on the news. Infowars is just utter nonsense.
Infowars could claim that immigrants are using teleporters to enter the country and its readership would believe it.
Yeah, that's my point. The idiots visiting it won't get satire.
Is it The Onion? Or Not the Onion?
Yes
Today, The Onion ate.
Saw the news on their YouTube. Looked it up thinking it was satire and sure as shit it’s not. Probably the fastest I’ve ever purchased merch ever. Gonna love wearing my onion shirt, always loved them but this was the point I needed to send them some money because this is hilarious.
They just brought back print and it's been very satisfying for me so far.
I’m glad you mentioned this, I just signed up for a year of print
Happy to help!
They need new merch with the infowars logo almost the same but with an onion dotting the i
im sorry but the owner's name is tim onion. please publish a correction.
They should send Alex Jones a $1 "royalty" check every month - just so that he doesn't forget it.
Make it $0.01. No need to waste too much money.
Nah. They should just make sure the checks bounce.
Nah, send his victims fund a royalty check and him a confirmation of delivery.
That works for me, too.
The Onion's first headline needs to be:
"Oh Shit! It's ALL true!"
Finally some good news!
Remember Stephen Colbert's satire? Conservatives loved him.
Satire of something already completely outlandish is problematic.
What problem did that cause? It only made everyone else laugh at them harder.
You could accidentally create new conspiracies, that people legitimately believe.
I don't think that ever happened with Colbert, did it?
People's definitely agreed with and used his lines of argument, even though he intended them humorously. I don't know if he put out any conspiracy theories.
I just don't think the people who believed him and used his lines of argument were taken seriously either except by people who were already in their bubble and weren't going to come out.
I'm too tired to make this witty but something about it leading to the MAGA movement being a bubble
What was the "gut" thing again?
PrObLeMaTiC
it's when there are problems
I hope they keep Alex Jones's communism financing operation going.
LoL, AJ lost the Info War. 🤣👍
Listen, I keep saying that reality is better satire than satire, BUT COME ON!
Great idea. Who didn't like the Colbert Report? Could turn out like a right-wing populist Repor!
But he's got a serious side. You know what those globalists are doing...
Can't wait for Dan and Jordan to cover this
I keep refreshing my pod feed waiting for the next episode.
Do they have rights to use Jones' likeness, in the sense of reposting old clips and the like?
They said they have everything.
Here you go
Best news I've seen in weeks
Wait, what? Which parts of this are satire now? I read the Onion piece that Global Tetrahedron was purchasing InfoWars, but this is a Guardian story saying The Onion is purchasing it? I'm a bit confused.
It's not satire, they are purchasing it for real.
https://www.axios.com/2024/04/25/the-onion-sold-global-tetrahedron
It's on APNews too - it's real
Its also exactly the kind of thing you'd expect to read about in the onion.
This is beyond mear irony.
Does this mean they're Alex Jones's boss now?
Makes sense. They keep him contained somewhere to ramble, while appropriately inducted and vetted comedians interpret, neutralize and transmit his bullshit and make it funny.
An oracle of comedy situation.
Aside from the official licensing, you essentially just described Knowledge Fight.
They own his IP rights so can just clone him into an AI bot
I mean, it’s already half way there, all they got to do is make it funny
That pushed me over the edge to subscribe to the print edition
This should be good...
They're halfway there already.
Next week's headlines "Alex Jones appointed as Secretary of State" or some other wackass shit.
Press secretary would be perfect.
Ok, but surgeon general would be hilarious
The Surgeon General hawking supplements in official statements would be peak America.
Full on C. Everett Coop style sending pamphlets to every home in America except instead of it being a genuinely courageous and heroic act of medical ethics, providing information on how to prevent the spread of HIV even when those acts went against his religion, this will be explaining how to prevent the woke mind virus using his leaded brain pills, now with extra cadmium
I thought that was a joke. But regular news sites are running the story. So maybe it's real?
It's real. Their new owner is very rich and doesn't give a fuck
I saw a TikTok of Alex crying about it. It is real.
That's really amazing. Their joke article was hilarious even as a joke. But the fact that they really bought it is beautiful.
Oh my god what a power move. More power to them, seriously. Best outcome we could have gotten
It took me a while to realize this is actually true. Reality is amazing.
Lol I am so happy about this.
They should run it like it was. Then in about a year, just subtly start changing the context. Then before you know it, they are going to start supporting progressive topics.
How could you tell the difference?
Honestly, I would love for them to turn it into just a bastion of info. Just detail the goings-on of the current government.
I wonder what they paid 🤣
To quote the Onion themselves:
Their adherence to the technically correct is awe-inspiring.
THEY TURNED THE FREAKIN FROG GAY!!!!!!!
ITS NOT FUNNY!!!
This just made my day
Who did they give money to? Maybe it would've been better if they just created a offbrand infowars.
The assets were auctioned off to pay his debt to the families of the Sandy Hook shooting.
So effectively they gave money to the families of children killed in a school shooting that he slandered in cruel and vile ways.
Given that the families pretty reasonably dislike him, the added bonus of his creation being used to openly mock him and promote a message they endorse is quality icing on the cake.
One thing the headlines aren't mentioning is that the families actually even helped fund a portion of the Onion's bid.
Ha! I didn't see that at first. I love "fuck you so hard that we can and will put a significant dollar value on it being more humiliating".
Ha!
I believe this money goes to the victims' families
Probably the money paid for whomever Alex Jones lost lawsuits against -- so like Sandy Hook victims.
It was being auctioned for the victims but there was also the real risk that a supporter would win who would let him he continue on business as usual. So definitely money well spent.
This is the best thing that's ever happened
Alien diarrhea is the real cause of global warning!
i didn't know that 🤯
Wait, is it real?
This is fucking hilarious, best news I've heard in forever.
meaning even more so
Stupid it was all along
Well they only need to do the first part of that.
This is so weird, I just read a comment on Lemmy where someone said they should do exactly this.
It was a good idea. Makes sense multiple people thought of it, including the onion
I look forward to seeing Jean Teasdale as the editor and Jim Anchower cruising again.
Where did they move? Where is Alex Jones on now?
according to the guardian article, he's complaining on Xitter now
I think he's getting sued or something
So....the onion is now donating money to Alex Jones.
Thats kinda fucked.
It's a bankruptcy auction, and he's bankrupt because he was sued by Sandy Hook families. Some of those families gave money to the Onion to buy InfoWars so Alex Jones is losing his platform and his money.
It sucks for him more than it helps him really.
It doesn’t help him at all. As a bankruptcy auction they’re taking what they can get and forgiving the rest. If the auctions had gone over settlement price it would’ve helped him, but that wasn’t going to happen, you don’t really get bankruptcy when you have salable assets whose expected value exceeds your debts.
That's not how bankruptcy filings work
nope