Hi everyone,

News is weird. When it’s weird enough, it reads like articles from The Onion, and that’s what we’re all about. But as the community grows, there’s more and more content being posted here that just isn’t very Onion-y.

Jimmy Carter Becomes Second President Convicted Of Felony For Sticking Up Waffle House

Take a look at that headline from The Onion today. Or this one:

World Series Of Poker Entrants Play One Hand Face-Up So Everyone Can Learn Rules

Or this one:

New Hormone-Free IUD Wards Off Sperm With Steady Emission Of Police-Grade Pepper Spray

That’s the flavor we’re going for. We want real, credible news articles with headlines that read like they’re from The Onion.

This is not the community for:

  • Non-Onion-y political news (it’s gotta be absurd enough to look Onion-y)
  • Non-Onion-y regular news (it’s gotta be absurd enough to look Onion-y)
  • Satire (it’s gotta be actual news)
  • Fake news from fly-by-night “news” sites (again, it’s gotta be actual news)

That means not every ridiculous thing a politician does qualifies as appropriate content here.

I need your help, though… I need people to report content that just isn’t Onion-y, and I need people to try not to post non-Onion-y content in the first place.

Finally, I need help moderating, so this is also a formal call for new mods! Post below if you think you’re ready to take on moderation for one of the larger Lemmy communities! Tell me why you’d like to mod, and link to a news story from any time (it doesn’t have to be current) that has a properly Onion-y headline, to show that you really get this community.

I’ll pick two people to become new moderators for the community from participants. Good luck!

  • @jeffwEnglish
    2•7 months ago

    Did I wonder? No, it was on a legit news site. But Trump throwing a temper tantrum and calling other people names can be (and more importantly, has been) the topic of Onion articles

    • @candybrieEnglish
      3•7 months ago

      You’re the one who set that as the bar.

      The idea behind this community should be that you think “wait, really? Is that serious or satire?”

      I don’t think anyone at this point would even do a double take to check “is this from a satire news source?” if they happened to see it shared in a context that makes the source not immediately known (e.g. on lemmy). At this point, The Onion headlines involving Trump tend to veer into total ridiculousness (Trump killing Cohen with a pen, bribing people with pb&j, etc). The only way you can do subtlety involving him is things that are totally out of character, like anything with self awareness or acknowledgement of rigging things in his favor.