Nolte: Far-Left Satire Site ‘The Onion’ Part of Parent Company Fire Sale

The Onion, a far-left satire site that used to be funny, is now part of a fire sale being conducted by parent company G/O Media.

G/O Media had already unloaded the sports site Deadspin and feminist Jezebel. On Tuesday, the beleaguered and shrinking G/O announced that the left-wing entertainment site The A.V. Club and the foodie site The Takeout had been sold.

The New York Post reported that The Onion has been tossed on this fire sale by G/O Media.

“G/O also is said to be in talks with a few suitors for The Onion,” the Post reported, “but it could not be immediately learned how far along they were in the process.”

The satirical site, launched by a pair of juniors at the University of Wisconsin in 1988, gained a cult following with headlines such “Holy S—! Man Walks on F—ing Moon,” “Study Reveals: Babies are Stupid” and “Archaeological Dig Uncovers Ancient Race of Skeleton People.”

The site changed hands over the years, becoming part of former Gawker publisher Nick Denton’s Gizmodo empire, before private equity firm Great Hill Partners bought Gizmodo for an undisclosed amount in 2019 and changed the name to G/O.

For the first time in, well, ever, I took a look at The Onion’s homepage and didn’t laugh once. Here are the five most recent headlines:

• Worst Side Effects Ozempic Users Don’t Want You To Know About
• Lint Roller Passed Over Crotch Ahead Of Date
• Trump’s Civil Fraud Bond Lowered To $175 Million
• Kate Middleton Reveals Cancer Diagnosis
• Kamala Harris Joins D.C. Coworking Space

Compare The Onion headlines to those of another satire site — a real satire site: The Babylon Bee:

• Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg Holds Emergency Press Conference To Announce He Is Taking 3 More Months Maternity Leave
• NYC Mayor Assures Migrants That If They Run Out Of Prepaid Debit Cards They Can Just Rob Americans Directly
• Nation Starting To Wonder If Diddy May Have Done A Few Of Those Things He Repeatedly Rapped About Doing
• Donald Trump Squats In Trump Tower, Forcing New Landlord AG James Into Years-long Eviction Battle
• Ketanji Says She’s Unable To Define Free Speech Because She’s Not A Founding Father

All I know is that no one’s looking to dump The Babylon Bee in a fire sale.

Did The Onion learn nothing from National Lampoon? That link is not broken. National Lampoon is no more.

You have to be a real uptight prig to not find reams of humor in these oversensitive times. There is so much material out there, but now that the left has captured politics, media, big business, academia, and entertainment, the satirists choose to be good dogs and palace guards.

Well, from the look of it, they are about to be unemployed good dogs and palace guards.

They had the greatest job in the world — mocking power — and they blew it.

I think it was Thomas Jefferson who said, “Losing your sense of humor is the first sign you’ve been infected with Woke.”

Maybe it was Tupac.