The Onion is not funny or creative anymore...it used to be...now it is just a mockery for masses

I’m guessing you’re referring to their YouTube channel, in which case, I totally agree. But AFAIK the website is still just as good as always.

They used to put out brilliant high-production value videos like this one: https://youtu.be/Y2j3PsDW33E

Now it’s nearly all low-effort YT Shorts like these… https://youtu.be/-0CVJS1FTmY

Perhaps the satire has just gone over my head? But it’s hard to give them the benefit of the doubt when all their videos are like this now…

I recall reading somewhere that the high-quality Onion videos of a decade-plus ago (I loved Today Now and Sex House) cost a lot of money but simply didn't make much money. Which I guess is obvious if a for-profit company stopped making them, but still, it is a shame quality wasn't rewarded.

They’ve been funded my whoever pay their bills. For ONN/Today Now, that was paid for by IFC, a TV network. Their Onion Digital years (Sex House, Onion Talks) were basically ads for them as a creative agency (aka Onion Labs, which was shut down in late 2015). Since then, they were sold to G/O Media, and have been basically been gutted.

There’s more than one series which was funded by a streaming platform that has since shut down, and is basically lost media at this point.

They're merely adapting their product to the unforgiving dramatic shifts in the market's consumption model. Those that don't (like College Humor), die.

Did they target some issue you're sensitive about?

They're the same as they have always been. I've been reading the Onion for over 2 decades.

My impression (as an American abroad with no longer any dog in the partisan political fight) is that The Onion has come to feature a lot more (and a lot more acrid) political satire than in the late 1990s or early 2000s. That would only be expected, because even real newspapers have found that increasing coverage of hot-button politics or other culture wars can boost ad impressions.

They were doing the same thing in the 90's and 2000's. We just have stronger mechanisms for advertising and social media now.

"It's the children who are wrong"

The Babylon Bee easily nabbed the torch from The Onion in the last few years. Surprisingly more edgy, too.

Hard disagree. The Babylon Bee is wildly unfunny, incapable of even the most basic principles of humor most of the time. Half of it is the same few jokes repeated over and over again.

me reading 89th "attack helicopter" joke in a row: WHEEZE

Exactly my thoughts. BabylonBee just seems like a collection of incredibly lazy political jokes. Folks in certain subreddits sure eat it up though; in some there are more BabylonBee posts than actual real content.

A shocking amount of Babylon Bee articles have predicted the future too.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2022/05/30/babyl...

Reality has really started to make satirists jobs difficult.

I stop reading that "list of fulfilled predictions" after the first three because all three "predictions" were substantially different claims than the alleged "fullfillments".

Wow, that's really terrible list when on top you've got "Marvel's newest Captain America is an LGBTQ+ activist" as a fulfillment for "Captain America Rebooted As Feminist, Atheist, Transgender Hydra Agent"