Jon | jonbois@gmail.com | AIM: Boiskov
The writers of The Onion are probably the funniest people to ever live. As hyperbolic as that sounds, I have to throw that honor on someone, and I can't think of anyone better. I'll try to break it down to three reasons:
- Their "character writing." They can, with spot-on accuracy, emulate voices of a twentysomething stoner, a middle-aged dimwit, a pulp-fiction-style alien overlord, a negligent mother, and dozens of other personas. And the thing is, they don't write characters as simply "redneck" or "thug" or whatever else. The attention to detail shines through the development they give these characters with only a few paragraphs. I almost envision these writers going through method-acting routines before they sit down and write.
Personal relevance: The majority of my writing is done in character. I'm usually trying assume some voice. Practice has taken me a long way, but if I ever get half as good as The Onion is at this, I'll be satisfied.
- The presentation. If you ignore the A.V. Club (which is actually pretty good in its own right) and the Onion Personals ads (probably the most out-of-place things of all time), everything's so seamless. The Onion has several writers, but they all manage to write from the same place, so to speak. I kind of winced when I saw they started their radio and "ONN" video sections, because I figured they couldn't pull it off as perfectly, but they have. You rarely see something so inspired done so professionally. Or with such little ego. It's a very "man-behind-the-curtain" atmosphere. I've read The Onion for like six years, and couldn't tell you the name of a single writer.
Personal relevance: The first few articles I ever wrote on the Internet were personal narratives. After a bit, I realized that I didn't have enough interesting life experiences to be able to coast on forever, so I made myself write exposition on things unrelated to me. It's worked well for me, but after a while, the temptation to delve back into self-indulgence returns. I figure, "hey, I've been writing for a while now. I've earned the right to just talk about myself." The ego-driven urge grows stronger, and eventually I want to just post ten pictures of my dick on the Internet. The Onion writers, though, apparently have never had this problem.
- Their refusal to run with the expected. When some news story breaks out that seems like it's ripe for jokes, I usually observe two things. The first is a gaggle of humorists, all coming up with the same joke, tripping over each other for the right to be the one to say it first and loudest. The second is The Onion going in a completely unexpected direction with it. They may observe the situation closer and keenly point out something that everyone else looked over, or they may use the event as a device to mock itself or something else. I don't know how they do it, but I do know that I've never once read an Onion article and knew what was in it before I read it. That's quite a compliment these days.
Personal relevance: Hopefully, readers see Progressive Boink as a site that tries to do the unconventional and unexpected. That's sometimes easy to do when we can do just about anything we want to do with a webpage. The Onion, in terms of format, is almost the opposite. They get 1000 words and maybe a couple of pictures, and that's it. But they leverage that small amount of freedom to do stuff that's really out of the ordinary. Whenever I read them, they almost always inspire me to do more with less.
That, unfortunately, is about as succintly as I can express why I love The Onion. I'd call it my chief inspiration as a writer, and I hope it never stops.
Seriously, though. Ditch the Onion Personals ads. They teeter on the brink of ruining everything.
Jon's favorites:
(click pictures for full articles)
10
Bush Regales Dinner Guests With Impromptu Oratory On Virgil's Minor Works
"I love to hear George hold court on this or that," said Bush family friend and world-renowned physicist Norberta Münter. "I tell him he is such a spoiled brat, the way he demands our attention, but I must confess I can't take my eyes off him when he does."
As has been well-documented on this website, we generally can't stand Bush-targeted satire on the Internet. It's pretty common knowledge by this point that our President is ineffective, a bad guy, and kind of a moron. When Bush first assumed office, The Onion was the only one to really get it right. Over the years, he's grown less and less popular, turning practically everyone on the Internet into a political humorist who writes/blogs/Flash-animates something aggravatingly stupid and calls it "Bush parody" without really knowing what dictionaries have to say about the word.
The Onion is the best at this, because a lot of the time "Bush is stupid" isn't really the meat of the joke. This particular article is all about unexpected creativity and execution. These writers are obviously some well-read, well-learned people, but they write in such a way that those who are perhaps less well-read and well-learned, such as myself, can appreciate it fully.
9
You Will Suffer Humiliation When The Sports Team From My Area Defeats The Sports Team From Your Area
"I would not be a bit surprised if the individuals on the team from your area were sexually attracted to members of their own gender. That is how ineffective they are on the field of battle."
Literalization jokes are awesome, especially when they speak social truths. It's fun to read through this article and try to backwards-translate it into the common-speak you've heard from people a million times. For those of us who didn't need this article to spell out how stupid this sort of sentiment can be, it's a refreshing acknowledgement of the frustrations we regularly experience.
A few years ago, I worked at a mall. A fat, thirtysomething lame-ass named Greg worked at the store across the hall. Since I was a "sports guy," he figured I wanted to talk shit about sports all day. Eventually, it became known that I liked a team that was his team's rival. I'd engage in argument with him just for kicks, and the sentiment was so similar to that of this article that I'd often just start laughing mid-debate. If every sports fan were made to read this, I think the world would be better for it.
8
Dope Just Galumphing Where Life Takes Him
"At the close of another day, the stumblebum once again failed to conceive of a single quest, great or small. [His cat] Yellow in his lap, he remained on the recliner through the night, his unconscious mind doubtlessly dancing with images of found sawbucks and crab apples."
Simple storytelling is one of comedy's lost arts, but clearly these guys still have it. The article's really just a character sketch of a guy. He's not joined at the ass with a Siamese twin, he's not narceleptic, he's not anything that most writers would write him to be. It's just a perfectly harmless story that isn't necessarily even personally relevant.
Like many Onion articles, the reader can interpret it in different ways. You could make a point that they're romanticizing complacent dim-wittedness, but I don't really think that was their point. Whatever it was, it makes me laugh every time, for reasons I can't quite identify.
7
Tow-Truck Driver Has Great Idea For Tow-Truck Movie
"Beresford is confident in his vision for Towtruckin', describing it as a "can't-miss" concept. He does, however, fear that the film could be ruined by studio executives who don't fully 'get it.' "
This one made me laugh because I know people like that. They seriously want to make movies, pitch TV shows, write books, whatever, about their mundane lives, because they think that shit's just awesome. A friend of mine once really wanted to pitch a movie to producers about the Louisville street-racing scene. I couldn't stop myself from laughing for a few seconds, but once I finally did, I realized how much it really hurt him.
These days, I read it and still laugh, but feel pangs of pity. This guy's existence will clearly revolve around tow trucks for the rest of his days, and it's just an attempt to show other people how much he loves his life. Kind of hard to poke fun at that.
6
Rumsfeld Hosts No-Holds-Barred Martial Arts Tournament At Remote Island Fortress
" 'I'm six months worth of gambling debt in the hole with the L.A. Syndicate,'" said Steele Saxon, 33, a blond, powerfully built seventh-degree black belt from Los Angeles. "Guy says to me, 'Hey, pal, it's the dough or we break something. Rumsfeld's got the dough if I've got the muscle. You just watch. Together, we've got the juice to put those Syndicate types in the rear-view mirror of history.' "
Forget about Rumsfeld here; I think they just threw him in because it would make things sillier. This is a spot-on mimic of every fighting game ever invented. They all feel the need to re-hash this derivative "Tournament of Champions" mystical king-of-the-world nonsense, and I'm not really sure why. If anything, it just turns me off. I'd be happy if the storyline were just "YOU ARE PLAYING A VIDEO GAME AND ARE TRYING TO SIMULATE FIGHTING TO THE BEST OF YOUR ABILITY."
5
Grad Student Deconstructs Take-Out Menu
" ' The other day, we passed a bus stop with a poster for Disney's The Country Bears," said friend Karen Pilson, 26. "I heard him mumble something about the incorporation of previously received notions concerning wildlife and our ecological environment into a reassuring, behavior-validating consumer commodity in the form of aggressively infantilized computer-animated pseudohumans that talk and play country music. Before I even had a chance to react, he went off the deep end and started throwing out terms like 'prenotional,' 'prolegomena,' 'gynocritical,' and 'logocentrism.' I was just stunned.' "
The Burrito Bandito menu image near the bottom of this article is one of the greatest pictures in Onion history, which is saying a lot.
This is another example of the Onion writers' diversity in talent. Many of their articles work because we can relate to them personally and uniquely, but with other articles, like this one, we're really not supposed to. It's just hilarious to read the guy's deconstructions, not because they're ridiculous, but because you can almost see the things that he's getting at. The character's clearly having a tough time, but I kind of wish I could deconstruct things as deeply and clearly as he's able to.
4
We Need a Fourth Law of Robotics: Stop Fingering My Wife
"Sure, I can tell the robots from the neighborhood, 'Hey, don't finger my wife!' and, under the Second Law Of Robotics, they'd have to comply. But what about the thousands of robots I've never met? The moment my back is turned, odds are my wife's going to get robo-fingered."
To be honest, the article itself isn't all that great by Onion standards. That's just how The Onion rolls sometimes -- the precept of the headline is so hilarious that whatever body they trot out can't possibly live up to it. I wouldn't really even call this headline 'genius', as I would everything else on this page. It just makes me laugh my ass off, that's all.
3
Are You Coming To My Show Tonight?
"So, you gonna show up? I guarantee a good time. We've been working on this flash pot to go off during our cover of "Der Kommissar." It'll be awesome. We have a friend who was supposed to breathe fire, but he broke his leg trying to fix his bookcase, so he can't go. It'll still be great even without that, though."
This article is the opposite of the last one. Every sentence of it is hilarious. It's just such an accurate extrapolation upon what most small-time bands are all about . They think they're really doing something awesome, but from just reading this guy you know it's probably the worst shit ever. I'm always amazed by the voices these writers are able to emulate. if it's not a Virgil-quoting philanderer, a small-minded middle-aged woman, or an insufferable hipster, it's something else that gets laughs from me due to the brilliant execution alone.
2
Best Years Of Area Man's Life Apparently Never Going To Happen
" 'I know Robyn thinks that if she gets one of the boys at school interested in her, she'll be popular, and that the best years of her life will begin," Videk said. "Little does she know she's just perpetuating an endless string of DNA replication that isn't going anywhere.' "
It's always interesting when The Onion deviates from comedy and decides to go for something depressingly poignant. This article tends to strike the fear of God into me. I'm an optimist, so I don't think I'll share sentiments with this guy when I'm his age, but the truth is that so many people do.
"An endless string of DNA replication that isn't going anywhere." People have expressed this before, but still. Ouch.
1
Crime Scene Used To Be Cool
" 'Pfft, forensics," Strenge said. "It's like, 'Oh, you found a strand of hair. Oh, you got some pictures of blood for your evidence files.' I saw the body, man.' "
I picked this as my #1 because it's classic Onion. They tend to write some of their funniest stuff at the expense of hipsters. The article raises a couple of questions. Why can you only love something that's obscure? Does loving something that's popular constitute some bizarre form of ownership? Once this situation is placed in a different context, the point is so much clearer.