3 ms·

The inflection point sometime in the past two years when the Bee became funnier than the Onion was a pretty sad one for us long-time fans of the latter. The McS

The inflection point sometime in the past two years when the Bee became funnier than the Onion was a pretty sad one for us long-time fans of the latter. The McSweeneysization of formerly good humor sites is one of the great tragedies of our ongoing culture war.

puffoflogic 4y ago
Woah, you can't call the Bee funny on HN.
- idlewords 4y ago
  I didn't call it funny! Just funnier than the Onion now.
  - spencerflem 4y ago
    I can reccomend the LA Hard Times! Absolutely terrific stuff. Onion is a little sad, just more boring than anything and their website layout is somehow still bad at showing new articles. Was incredible at their peak tho. Bee is too hateful to be funny for me at least :(
1123581321 4y ago
It’s interesting how this happened, too. First, there’s that the Babylon Bee is independent and The Onion has been just one of several brands under Gizmodo, then Univision, then a PE firm. Independence is an asset when trying to be funny since executive notes have never been known for being creatively freeing. Second, the Bee has a big pool of writers because it has a membership tier that allows pitching headlines. And their membership has grown as they’ve become a news story for things like their suspended Twitter account. So while The Onion’s parent corp was laying off staff, the Babylon Bee was growing its writers and also making more money, which let it hire more editors and producers and hire some of the headline-writing members who had proven themselves. All that led up to being able to produce a high volume of headlines and stories.
- idlewords 4y ago
  What you describe sounds like the old Cracked model, which worked for a surprisingly long time. The Onion was funny for a long time after they sold out; what seems to have tanked their comedy is an editorial decision in the last few years to become more politically engaged, and to start "punching up". You can date this to the time when they ditched the absurdist persona of Biden as a washed-up drifter they'd been building up all through the Obama years.

puffoflogic 4y ago

Woah, you can't call the Bee funny on HN.

idlewords 4y ago
I didn't call it funny! Just funnier than the Onion now.
- spencerflem 4y ago
  I can reccomend the LA Hard Times! Absolutely terrific stuff. Onion is a little sad, just more boring than anything and their website layout is somehow still bad at showing new articles. Was incredible at their peak tho. Bee is too hateful to be funny for me at least :(

1123581321 4y ago

It’s interesting how this happened, too. First, there’s that the Babylon Bee is independent and The Onion has been just one of several brands under Gizmodo, then Univision, then a PE firm. Independence is an asset when trying to be funny since executive notes have never been known for being creatively freeing. Second, the Bee has a big pool of writers because it has a membership tier that allows pitching headlines. And their membership has grown as they’ve become a news story for things like their suspended Twitter account. So while The Onion’s parent corp was laying off staff, the Babylon Bee was growing its writers and also making more money, which let it hire more editors and producers and hire some of the headline-writing members who had proven themselves. All that led up to being able to produce a high volume of headlines and stories.

idlewords 4y ago
What you describe sounds like the old Cracked model, which worked for a surprisingly long time. The Onion was funny for a long time after they sold out; what seems to have tanked their comedy is an editorial decision in the last few years to become more politically engaged, and to start "punching up". You can date this to the time when they ditched the absurdist persona of Biden as a washed-up drifter they'd been building up all through the Obama years.