sozobe wrote:Yeah, there was a change when they got to the big city, you're right. Their sensibility is too midwest-based -- it's like they didn't look out their window for inspiration anymore, more inward. More self-referential.
Plus I think the main guy quit a while ago, didn't he? Or removed himself from day-to-day operations, something like that?
The Onion has been around for about twelve years, I think. I was in 8th grade, lived in Milwaukee, I'd get the Onion at the drugstore.
My overall assessment is that I am impressed with how long the Onion has kept in funny. While I agree that perhaps there haven't been classics like "Smoking Pot Linked to Sitting Around and Getting High" as frequently, I still get a good laugh from the Onion. It's certainly funnier than most comic enterprises, Jay Leno for example, who I'm pretty sure is an alien poised to melt our faces any day now.
Also, I find it remarkable that it is creative work that people actually read on a weekly basis! I'm still hopeful that someday a free publication will be available that features poetry, fiction, and art that people will read, maybe if you sandwhich the art with interviews, music reviews, comics, humor, like the Onion.
As a hopeful fiction writer in progress from the Midwest, I'm really interested in the nature of regional humor. The irony of the Onion is something that everyone I went to high school with seemed to possess and appreciate naturally.
But I say the Onion is alive and well, particulary the editorials. Those have always been my favorite.