[mangosteenjuice]

The Onion had two events that resulted in a huge drop in writing quality and edginess:

OG writers refusing to relocate from NYC to Chicago in 2012 when the HQ was moved, choosing to part ways instead.

Then, the remaining writers being called out for the following tweet, somewhat rightly, but being neutered forever after:

https://crasstalk.com/2013/02/sorry-former-onion-staffers-ca...

[Nition]

I don't know any of the context around that tweet, but The Onion has obviously chosen the most innocent, blameless celebrity they could think of to make sure it's a clear joke to everyone, right? Like finding the skinniest person and calling them obese.

The writer of that article seems to have still somehow misunderstood and come to the conclusion that The Onion actually hates Quvenzhané Wallis. I wonder if they really don't get it, or if they're just sort of performatively not getting it for the outrage article.

[justin66]

On the contrary, the context was that the kid was getting a lot of very stupid criticism already. It’s certainly why they attempted the joke.

I don’t think anything about that situation was somehow off limits or immune to satire, they just didn’t pull off the joke. It’s not like the kid was likely to have seen the joke, so no worries there. The problem is that when you use language like that and you’re not even funny, you’re operating at the Andrew Dice Clay level of comedy. That should inspire suicidal ideation in any comedian (who isn’t Andrew Dice Clay… I guess…).

[ddingus]

Yes, both sad days for what was razor sharp satire.

[justin66]

It seemed to me they were well into the current era of lessened relevance before that stuff happened.

[astrange]

They also seem to think their Diamond Joe Biden character made real Joe Biden too popular, and their self-seriousness about this is making it hard for them to do anything political.