Originally published at: The Onion will be back in print - Boing Boing
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One of my fondest memories as a teenager working in the service industry (pizzeria) was my near daily conversations with the constantly high (and a damn good pizza chef) over the print version of the Onion. Our favorite article?
The article was proudly displayed on the pizza oven.
Long love the onion!
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Is this the beginning of unshittification?
ETA: I didn’t intend this as a reply to you. I hit the wrong button. Sorry.
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There’s an Onion-related book, Close Call, where the author prank calls various businesses (sort of like Letters from a Nut, but over the phone). One of the scenarios takes that story and runs with it; he calls a Papa John’s* and detects that the person answering the phone is higher than a kite.
*(for some value of “pizzeria” </s>)
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The GWB inauguration article was the all-time most prophetic headline.
" Bush: ‘Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over’"
“During the 40-minute speech, Bush also promised to bring an end to the severe war drought that plagued the nation under Clinton, assuring citizens that the U.S. will engage in at least one Gulf War-level armed conflict in the next four years.”
"Turning to the subject of the environment, Bush said he will do whatever it takes to undo the tremendous damage not done by the Clinton Administration to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. "
"Once again, we will enjoy mounting debt, jingoism, nuclear paranoia, mass deficit, and a massive military build-up.”
And then it all came true! Hahahaha sob.
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IIRC it did not take long: I remember them (I believe specifically Cheney) pretty much promising this not long after inauguration. But I rely completely on memory for this; I’ve never been able to go back and find an old (non-Onion) article about it. I don’t guess it was memory-holed but I don’t think I imagined it, either…
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At one time the office where I worked had the perfect combination of a lot of misdelivered mail and a mailroom guy who didn’t check address labels, just opened whatever came in. So at one point we got a print copy of The Onion.
The mailroom guy disappeared in the afternoon, when UPS delivered, so I gave it to our UPS person who really enjoyed this article:
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Nature is healing. Also…
“Archaeologists Discover Ancient Race of Skeleton People”
:chefkiss:
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Too bad they lopped off half of the enterprise months ago. It’ll never be as good as it was.
I love it, hope it works. It can - I was involved in one not too long ago.
A company I used to work for was a wildly successful small company, having ~80% market share in a medically-necessary industry so they got bought by one of the big names…who promptly failed them. They sat on the company for about 20 years, market share slowly fading (because literally only 1 other major competitor in the space), and then sold it for a crazy small amount to an investment group because they felt it couldn’t make any more money on it. Brought in a tailored C-suite and a bunch of smart people (grin) and we were turning half a billion profit the first year. It was amazing how successful we could be when you can actually make changes without spending all day wondering how the shareholders will consider this, and spend money on innovation rather than dividends.
Sadly, the wheel turns and after 6 years of roaring success, another giant bought them up. A lot of us jumped ship to avoid getting back on the big conglomerate train.
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The flipside of this pattern is to make your fortune by creating a startup which you try to fake it until a VC fund buys you out for zillions.
Thus the internet business has always been, since Burn Rate by Michael Wolff in 1996. IDK If things were like that in the old world.
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I miss getting the latest The Onion edition from the vestibule at Tower Records…
I still have a bunch of The Onion books. I only regret not buying more of them.
I hope the print edition becomes a regular thing.
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PREVIOUSLY ON BOING BOING
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Printed on freshly pulped paper made especially for this run then, used and abused by a trained team of Onion experts 'til almost unrecognizable as paper and then, lovingly recycled into the few hundred copies distributed at the convention to speculators who will oh so respectfully hoard until the price hits a ceiling. A fitting tribute.
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Return the print version to Madison, Wisconsin too or they obviously still don’t get what made it great.
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Nucular, surely?
/s
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I live in Japan these days. Tower Records never left here and it isn’t the same. In my previous area, the two Tower locations I frequented are now a liquor store and a toy store.
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In my case it was getting a copy of The Reader at Tower records in Chicago.
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I never got to see their printed version; my experience with The Onion was solely their online ‘paper’. Although a big fan (still am), I unconsciously avoided the site for a time after 9/11 (much too close to home), but then came the NPR radio interview with the writers; I listened to it in my car while driving home from work. The interview focused on how 9/11 humor could be covered so soon after the event, and how. I only recall two jokes: one about the terrorists waking up in Hell, and the other being a “paid notice” in The Onion. To the best of my recollection, here it is, not exactly as stated in the interview I dare say (I heard it only once), but the tenor and a couple of details do match: “Tri-State Floor and Tiles in Weehawken, New Jersey offers their sincere condolences”. The first joke gave me – an atheist – a touch of satisfaction, but the second one made me chuckle.
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