Column: ‘The Onion buys Infowars’ is not the craziest headline this week
- At times it’s hard to distinguish satirical headlines in the Onion from comments on Infowars.
Here’s a quiz. Read the following sentences and decide if they’re a headline from satirical news site the Onion or my summaries of comments from the unironic mind of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his disinformation network, Infowars.
Cloaked Hillary Clinton beckons Harris to follow her into woods.
Majority of frogs in the United States are now gay.
Dolphin spends amazing vacation swimming with stockbroker.
Deadly floods in Texas generated by Air Force’s weather machine.
Hard to tell, but from here on out you may not need to, because the two entities are poised to live under the same umbrella.
The Onion bought Infowars. And no, this is not a jokey Onion headline. (Quiz answers appear below.)
Thursday it was revealed that the Onion won an auction to acquire Infowars, Alex Jones’ vile repository of harmful lies that was sold as part of a defamation settlement after he falsely claimed that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut was a hoax. Jones was found guilty of defamation in 2022 by juries in Texas and Connecticut.
“Our goal in a couple of years is for people to think of Infowars as the funniest and dumbest website that exists,” said Ben Collins, the Onion’s CEO. “It was previously the dumbest website that exists.”
You’ve likely heard of former President Donald Trump’s mouthpiece and social media platform, Truth Social. But do you know what it’s really like? I’ll tell you.
The Onion’s bid was backed by the families of eight victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre and a first responder. A federal judge in Texas ordered a hearing into how the Onion won the bidding after Jones and his lawyers raised questions about how the auction was conducted, but not before the Onion shut down Infowars in preparation for its grand transformation from a hateful fake news empire to a parody of a hateful fake news empire.
Jones confirmed the Onion’s acquisition of Infowars in a social media video and said he planned to file legal challenges to stop it.
Should the deal go through, the Onion will have an exclusive advertising agreement with the gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety.
“We thought it would be a very funny joke if we bought this thing, probably one of the better jokes we’ve ever told,” Collins told the Associated Press. “The [Sandy Hook] families decided they would effectively join our bid, back our bid, to try to get us over the finish line. Because by the end of the day, it was us or Alex Jones, who could either continue this website unabated, basically unpunished, for what he’s done to these families over the years, or we could make a dumb, stupid website, and we decided to do the second thing.”
Jones is renowned for “reexamining” American tragedies and decrying them as a hoax. According to him, 9/11 was an inside job, the Boston Marathon bombing was staged by the FBI and the shooting of former Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was part of a clandestine mind-control operation.
Alongside the lies and conspiracy theories, Jones used Infowars to sell millions of dollars’ worth of merchandise such as DVDs and T-shirts, building a media empire that spanned the web, radio and subscription video. But his major source of revenue was a collection of dietary supplements catering to the specific needs and paranoias of his fan base: Infowars Life Silver Bullet Colloidal Silver. Infowars Life Super Male Vitality. Infowars Life Liver Shield.
Now add humor to the mix, and drop the rest of that other stuff.
One need to look no further than the Onion’s leading editorial Friday to see why Infowars has a bright future in the comedic fictional news zone. The Onion’s make-believe owner, Bryce P. Tetraeder, Global Tetrahedron CEO, penned the explainer about why he chose to buy Jones’ reprehensible site.
“Founded in 1999 on the heels of the Satanic ‘panic’ and growing steadily ever since, Infowars has distinguished itself as an invaluable tool for brainwashing and controlling the masses,” he wrote. “With a shrewd mix of delusional paranoia and dubious anti-aging nutrition hacks, they strive to make life both scarier and longer for everyone, a commendable goal. They are a true unicorn, capable of simultaneously inspiring public support for billionaires and stoking outrage at an inept federal state that can assassinate JFK but can’t even put a man on the moon.”
Tetraeder’s X account describes him as “Global Tetrahedron CEO, chairman, media proprietor, entrepreneur, human trafficker, thought leader, and venture capitalist.”
But what is he really? Let’s ask Jones. He’s a corporate tendrils, deep-state expert. Or was.
In a video posted on Thursday, Jones railed about the sale, calling it unconstitutional. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I’m going to be here until they come in there and turn the lights off,” he said.
Write your own “Disgraced CEO found in dark closet of old office” headline here.
As for the quiz, “Cloaked Hillary” and the vacationing dolphin were from the Onion.
The gay frogs and Air Force weather machine were from Jones.
But they’re no more outlandish than recent headlines about a Fox News co-host and combat veteran running the Department of Defense, or an anti-vaxxer picked to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. If only those were fake.
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