Ben Collins

Yeah, I was extremely excited, especially with these guys. A lot of what we deal with is people who just bend over backwards to help the onion. Like the MG people, they just wanted to help the onion. It is a special place in people's hearts. And just in the same way that we jumped in trying to save this thing, everybody else does.

Yeah, I was extremely excited, especially with these guys. A lot of what we deal with is people who just bend over backwards to help the onion. Like the MG people, they just wanted to help the onion. It is a special place in people's hearts. And just in the same way that we jumped in trying to save this thing, everybody else does.

Everybody else has their favorite onion headline in their heads, so they really wanted to do it. So there are definitely some skills and stuff that I had to pick up and learn along the way. My reporting was always tech adjacent, so I knew the verbiage. But it's service level always, right? So I know enough to not be completely humiliated 85% of the time.

Everybody else has their favorite onion headline in their heads, so they really wanted to do it. So there are definitely some skills and stuff that I had to pick up and learn along the way. My reporting was always tech adjacent, so I knew the verbiage. But it's service level always, right? So I know enough to not be completely humiliated 85% of the time.

And thankfully, Danielle and Leela fill in those gaps really well. But at the end of the day, the thing that we know how to do that this place knows how to do is sort of drive the conversation and, you know, say the dumbest possible sentence about what's going on on a day to day basis. At the end of the day, if we can't turn that into a business, what are we doing?

And thankfully, Danielle and Leela fill in those gaps really well. But at the end of the day, the thing that we know how to do that this place knows how to do is sort of drive the conversation and, you know, say the dumbest possible sentence about what's going on on a day to day basis. At the end of the day, if we can't turn that into a business, what are we doing?

That's a very it's a very fun life. That's what I did over the last few months. I knew that we needed a new website. Danielle knew it more than anybody else. And we did that immediately. And then the more that we heard from people, we were just really receptive and open to feedback about what people expected from The Onion, right? What do people really want?

That's a very it's a very fun life. That's what I did over the last few months. I knew that we needed a new website. Danielle knew it more than anybody else. And we did that immediately. And then the more that we heard from people, we were just really receptive and open to feedback about what people expected from The Onion, right? What do people really want?

How is this possible? I was proud to be an American or something. I was just like, oh, how is this happening? And I wanted to bring back that feeling. The staff was so excited about it. They had been living in this content farm hell for the last few years where they were literally trying to get people to click through on a slideshow to refresh programmatic advertising.

How is this possible? I was proud to be an American or something. I was just like, oh, how is this happening? And I wanted to bring back that feeling. The staff was so excited about it. They had been living in this content farm hell for the last few years where they were literally trying to get people to click through on a slideshow to refresh programmatic advertising.

And you can run a business like that, but it drives you insane. And the economics of that were also deteriorating. So we were like, what is going to make the staff happy? What's going to make the people on the other end of this happy? People, you know, helping us run a business from the consumer side happy. And what do we want to do? And the paper was the obvious thing.

And you can run a business like that, but it drives you insane. And the economics of that were also deteriorating. So we were like, what is going to make the staff happy? What's going to make the people on the other end of this happy? People, you know, helping us run a business from the consumer side happy. And what do we want to do? And the paper was the obvious thing.

So then we just had to like fill in the gaps about how do we do this? How do we get a website that can sell this thing and also make it so people actually want to click on our stories?

So then we just had to like fill in the gaps about how do we do this? How do we get a website that can sell this thing and also make it so people actually want to click on our stories?

What we said at the beginning is that we need to relay the foundation here, right? And the foundation is the paper. And this site on a day-to-day basis, but if we can have a paper that basically pays for the writer's room and then do all this extra weird stuff on top, then this is a really good business.

What we said at the beginning is that we need to relay the foundation here, right? And the foundation is the paper. And this site on a day-to-day basis, but if we can have a paper that basically pays for the writer's room and then do all this extra weird stuff on top, then this is a really good business.

Like over the years, they were best when they were nimble because they had the foundation, right? They made ClickHole because the site was doing OK because of Univision and all this stuff. They made O and N because they got an influx from YouTube money. But the site was doing okay at the time. It was doing all right. So now, like, how do we lay that foundation again?

Like over the years, they were best when they were nimble because they had the foundation, right? They made ClickHole because the site was doing OK because of Univision and all this stuff. They made O and N because they got an influx from YouTube money. But the site was doing okay at the time. It was doing all right. So now, like, how do we lay that foundation again?

The foundation will now be the paper. And then on top of that, we can take big risks to do weird stuff. That's the way we look at it, basically.

The foundation will now be the paper. And then on top of that, we can take big risks to do weird stuff. That's the way we look at it, basically.

It's several things. And, you know, if you're trying to get 20 million people to look at a picture of a shoe there, that's not 20 million people. You know, it's maybe half that at best.

It's several things. And, you know, if you're trying to get 20 million people to look at a picture of a shoe there, that's not 20 million people. You know, it's maybe half that at best.

Exactly. Right. And, you know, I'm a lot of this is driven by good reporting. Craig Silverman back from the BuzzFeed days, networks of ProPublica. It's a lot of it is a racket, man. Like it's not real. If it isn't a house of cards that says more about us in the economy than I want to think about. So I do want to get out ahead of it because it was most of our balance sheet.

Exactly. Right. And, you know, I'm a lot of this is driven by good reporting. Craig Silverman back from the BuzzFeed days, networks of ProPublica. It's a lot of it is a racket, man. Like it's not real. If it isn't a house of cards that says more about us in the economy than I want to think about. So I do want to get out ahead of it because it was most of our balance sheet.

We don't want to be a part of that economy if we if we don't have to. That's it. Like, you know, when we got the company, we got the P&L and we got the contracts and all this stuff. You do look at it's extremely seductive, right? You see like, oh, wow, like you really can just make money letting it roll in. That is a way of doing business. It's just not the way I want things to work.

We don't want to be a part of that economy if we if we don't have to. That's it. Like, you know, when we got the company, we got the P&L and we got the contracts and all this stuff. You do look at it's extremely seductive, right? You see like, oh, wow, like you really can just make money letting it roll in. That is a way of doing business. It's just not the way I want things to work.

Maybe this is like a very like hopium millennial bullshit thing. But like I want people to like us, therefore pay us money to give us the thing. I want this to be a simpler business. I think there's like – you know, there are two economies near it. One is like a real economy where you can pay someone for goods and services that you like. And then there's this other one that is fictional.

Maybe this is like a very like hopium millennial bullshit thing. But like I want people to like us, therefore pay us money to give us the thing. I want this to be a simpler business. I think there's like – you know, there are two economies near it. One is like a real economy where you can pay someone for goods and services that you like. And then there's this other one that is fictional.

They were living in the second one and – It also also crushes your soul to try to feed that beast. It was doing that to our writers. Yeah. And, you know, the weight has lifted off of them recently. And we want to we have some sort of responsibility to the world to turn out good comedy writers. It can't just be getting them to tell people to make the 14th page of a slideshow.

They were living in the second one and – It also also crushes your soul to try to feed that beast. It was doing that to our writers. Yeah. And, you know, the weight has lifted off of them recently. And we want to we have some sort of responsibility to the world to turn out good comedy writers. It can't just be getting them to tell people to make the 14th page of a slideshow.

It has to be them actually attacking the world in the way they do it.

It has to be them actually attacking the world in the way they do it.

We're four days into reading cross tabs on this, so I wish we had better answers. But, like, it's both. And definitely the response that we've gotten is all across the map, right? As a previous disinformation reporter, I used to say this, you know, the lies are free and the good information is behind the paywall. And that's part of the fascist economy of information where –

We're four days into reading cross tabs on this, so I wish we had better answers. But, like, it's both. And definitely the response that we've gotten is all across the map, right? As a previous disinformation reporter, I used to say this, you know, the lies are free and the good information is behind the paywall. And that's part of the fascist economy of information where –

The one of the things that becomes a commodity that is hidden behind paywalls, just like the water wars in the future is information. You have to pay to read Puck or Casey's newsletter or whatever stuff, stuff with good stuff in it. And Pizzagate is free. I was always worried about that.

The one of the things that becomes a commodity that is hidden behind paywalls, just like the water wars in the future is information. You have to pay to read Puck or Casey's newsletter or whatever stuff, stuff with good stuff in it. And Pizzagate is free. I was always worried about that.

But there is sort of a hybrid model here where you can pay people because you like them and you're paying for the ability to make this stuff free for future generations. And you still get a nice, like, you get a good thing in your hands. For us, it's a newspaper in the mail. Like, the margins are pretty good. And you can show a sign of support. You can develop a relationship with us.

But there is sort of a hybrid model here where you can pay people because you like them and you're paying for the ability to make this stuff free for future generations. And you still get a nice, like, you get a good thing in your hands. For us, it's a newspaper in the mail. Like, the margins are pretty good. And you can show a sign of support. You can develop a relationship with us.

But you can also, you're doing a service by keeping this thing free in the future. And that's really what we want to do is like so far, a lot of people have come out to do that in terms of like who is actually paying for it. You know, we're seeing people who are saying I'm 20 years old or something like a couple of people said this. And my grandmother had a stack of these in the basement.

But you can also, you're doing a service by keeping this thing free in the future. And that's really what we want to do is like so far, a lot of people have come out to do that in terms of like who is actually paying for it. You know, we're seeing people who are saying I'm 20 years old or something like a couple of people said this. And my grandmother had a stack of these in the basement.

That's how I even know what this is. And I'm paying for this. And I got a gift gift subscription for my grandmother. Right. It's a cross generational thing. Everybody's version of the onion. This is a really specific thing for us is very different. Everybody's favorite headline of the onion is usually something I've never fucking heard of in my life.

That's how I even know what this is. And I'm paying for this. And I got a gift gift subscription for my grandmother. Right. It's a cross generational thing. Everybody's version of the onion. This is a really specific thing for us is very different. Everybody's favorite headline of the onion is usually something I've never fucking heard of in my life.

It's from 15 years ago and it's some like narrow joke about like Arby's or something. I have no idea. But the beauty of the place is that it adapts the times and everybody has their own sentimental relationship with it. So far, we've seen that, you know, in the in the bare bones crosstab reading we've read, you know, it's literally every single generation. We get a lot of Gen X men.

It's from 15 years ago and it's some like narrow joke about like Arby's or something. I have no idea. But the beauty of the place is that it adapts the times and everybody has their own sentimental relationship with it. So far, we've seen that, you know, in the in the bare bones crosstab reading we've read, you know, it's literally every single generation. We get a lot of Gen X men.

We get a lot of Gen Z women who liked our Palestine coverage. Like it's all over the place.

We get a lot of Gen Z women who liked our Palestine coverage. Like it's all over the place.

All of us came to that conclusion, all of us.

All of us came to that conclusion, all of us.

Yeah, our editor-in-chief has been there for 27 years. Yeah.

Yeah, our editor-in-chief has been there for 27 years. Yeah.

The whole point of this from the very beginning is to protect their process. We didn't want to come in and change anything in that regard because the process is – It's a way of doing things that actually I think other places could really learn from and help from. I just want to walk through their daily process for writing headlines. They come in every day.

The whole point of this from the very beginning is to protect their process. We didn't want to come in and change anything in that regard because the process is – It's a way of doing things that actually I think other places could really learn from and help from. I just want to walk through their daily process for writing headlines. They come in every day.

There's either one or two meetings depending on the day. And then they write. So usually it's around like 190 headlines. They are put into a Google form and completely anonymized. Then from there, it's trimmed down a little bit by one of the editors per day. Then they go in the room and they read them out loud, all of them.

There's either one or two meetings depending on the day. And then they write. So usually it's around like 190 headlines. They are put into a Google form and completely anonymized. Then from there, it's trimmed down a little bit by one of the editors per day. Then they go in the room and they read them out loud, all of them.

And if it gets a laugh or if it's like that's something that's a character we're going to bring back or they're going to talk through it, they check it off. And then they whittle those down over and over and over again. By the end of the meeting, there's usually, what, Danielle, like 10 max, 5 to 10?

And if it gets a laugh or if it's like that's something that's a character we're going to bring back or they're going to talk through it, they check it off. And then they whittle those down over and over and over again. By the end of the meeting, there's usually, what, Danielle, like 10 max, 5 to 10?

And then those get written out. And if the copy's not good or if it's just a nib or something, that gets whittled down to like three or four per day. That comes from that contributor network that has like legit famous people in it or it comes from the people in the room. And then only after all that do they go back and they're like, that guy wrote that thing. Yeah. That's how meritocratic this is.

And then those get written out. And if the copy's not good or if it's just a nib or something, that gets whittled down to like three or four per day. That comes from that contributor network that has like legit famous people in it or it comes from the people in the room. And then only after all that do they go back and they're like, that guy wrote that thing. Yeah. That's how meritocratic this is.

And if I came in there and I was like, oh, I have a better way of doing this, I would be a fucking maniac. So keeping that process in place was our number one goal, and we've not changed that in any capacity. Our whole thing, we just said to them, we just need to give you more avenues for jokes. We need to give you money for video. We need to, again, make a newspaper or something.

And if I came in there and I was like, oh, I have a better way of doing this, I would be a fucking maniac. So keeping that process in place was our number one goal, and we've not changed that in any capacity. Our whole thing, we just said to them, we just need to give you more avenues for jokes. We need to give you money for video. We need to, again, make a newspaper or something.

Whatever you guys want to do, you need to be in more... spaces to do that. So it's not just headlines in the internet, something much bigger. That's the thing that we're doing is we're protecting a process that can feed into much bigger things.

Whatever you guys want to do, you need to be in more... spaces to do that. So it's not just headlines in the internet, something much bigger. That's the thing that we're doing is we're protecting a process that can feed into much bigger things.

Look, I try to get a feel for what everyone wants first. There is a level of selflessness, especially with this thing. I view this thing as a museum. Directly outside this door, there is 30 years of newspapers and boxes. And it would be a level of true egomania to think that I could do it better.

Look, I try to get a feel for what everyone wants first. There is a level of selflessness, especially with this thing. I view this thing as a museum. Directly outside this door, there is 30 years of newspapers and boxes. And it would be a level of true egomania to think that I could do it better.

So the first thing we did was we brought in everybody that we could find from the 30 years of The Onion and talked to them. And we tried to listen to what they think The Onion is, and we tried to get every angle of it all the way around. And then we tried to listen to people, kids on TikTok who read our headlines and do the thing where they just point at it.

So the first thing we did was we brought in everybody that we could find from the 30 years of The Onion and talked to them. And we tried to listen to what they think The Onion is, and we tried to get every angle of it all the way around. And then we tried to listen to people, kids on TikTok who read our headlines and do the thing where they just point at it.

And we listened to those people too, right? What do they think The Onion is? People who've had this their whole lives. This is already an institution in their life, and they view it that way too. And then we just try to synthesize it. And we don't try to like stray from that too hard or don't try to make business decisions that interfere with that. We try to protect the sanctity of the thing.

And we listened to those people too, right? What do they think The Onion is? People who've had this their whole lives. This is already an institution in their life, and they view it that way too. And then we just try to synthesize it. And we don't try to like stray from that too hard or don't try to make business decisions that interfere with that. We try to protect the sanctity of the thing.

And they're like, OK, well, how do we protect this and make it a business on top of it? And that's always been my thing for the last few months is make sure that they have what they need to succeed. And. That's really the whole process. I wish I should write it down and have a book that is an airport called Drive or something. Yeah. But I don't have that yet. I'll get back to you on that.

And they're like, OK, well, how do we protect this and make it a business on top of it? And that's always been my thing for the last few months is make sure that they have what they need to succeed. And. That's really the whole process. I wish I should write it down and have a book that is an airport called Drive or something. Yeah. But I don't have that yet. I'll get back to you on that.

Oh, that's great.

Oh, that's great.

Oh, my God. Yeah, of course. Danielle can talk about this, but we do have a call every single morning at 10 in the morning because she's in New York. Lila and I are in Chicago. So every day we try to ward off what I call what I say with Danielle, I call bureauitis, which is like.

Oh, my God. Yeah, of course. Danielle can talk about this, but we do have a call every single morning at 10 in the morning because she's in New York. Lila and I are in Chicago. So every day we try to ward off what I call what I say with Danielle, I call bureauitis, which is like.

I learned this from an old journalism professor, but like he was talking about how people – if you're like the London Bureau correspondent at the New York Times, you're king shit of fuck city in London, baby. You're walking around, coolest person in the world. Then you go back to New York and – You're like, hi, guys. Our number one priority is like everyone remembers that Danielle did this.

I learned this from an old journalism professor, but like he was talking about how people – if you're like the London Bureau correspondent at the New York Times, you're king shit of fuck city in London, baby. You're walking around, coolest person in the world. Then you go back to New York and – You're like, hi, guys. Our number one priority is like everyone remembers that Danielle did this.

Like Danielle made this newspaper. Danielle made this website. So like a lot of that is there too. But yeah, I want to let Danielle talk about it because like, you know, friends becoming business partners is a crazy thing to do, especially when you're on this kind of timeline.

Like Danielle made this newspaper. Danielle made this website. So like a lot of that is there too. But yeah, I want to let Danielle talk about it because like, you know, friends becoming business partners is a crazy thing to do, especially when you're on this kind of timeline.

It's also worse because I'm from the news. So I'm always like, if we don't get this done by an hour, no one's going to care. That's a new thing for me that I have to get over.

It's also worse because I'm from the news. So I'm always like, if we don't get this done by an hour, no one's going to care. That's a new thing for me that I have to get over.

Back in January, I was reading Adweek. I was writing a very – I don't know if the book was bad, but the process of writing the book was miserable. It was writing about Nazis on the internet and stuff. You know those people.

Back in January, I was reading Adweek. I was writing a very – I don't know if the book was bad, but the process of writing the book was miserable. It was writing about Nazis on the internet and stuff. You know those people.

I'm sick of those people, terrible. So I was reading Adweek and I saw that The Onion was for sale. And this was around the time where things were just shuttering. Sports Illustrated and Jezebel just shuttered. And I was from the same company, Gio owned Jezebel. Or things were being turned into like AI slop farms or Elon Musk was buying it, worst case scenario. I had posted on Blue Sky.

I'm sick of those people, terrible. So I was reading Adweek and I saw that The Onion was for sale. And this was around the time where things were just shuttering. Sports Illustrated and Jezebel just shuttered. And I was from the same company, Gio owned Jezebel. Or things were being turned into like AI slop farms or Elon Musk was buying it, worst case scenario. I had posted on Blue Sky.

Yeah. Yeah. Also, like it's a whole writer's room full of like newspaper. There's two people in this writer's room of 15 people who designed a college newspaper. But also, like we know, you know, really when I knew this was going to work, we had already started going down this path. And I was like, let's do a test.

Yeah. Yeah. Also, like it's a whole writer's room full of like newspaper. There's two people in this writer's room of 15 people who designed a college newspaper. But also, like we know, you know, really when I knew this was going to work, we had already started going down this path. And I was like, let's do a test.

Night of the first debate, which we didn't know was going to be like the most consequential night of 2024, but whatever. I was like, let's just get everybody in the thing. We'll do the old fashioned thing. You guys can live tweet it and we'll make the front page of the paper again. And I had called my friend Josh Crutchmer, who designs a one of the New York Times.

Night of the first debate, which we didn't know was going to be like the most consequential night of 2024, but whatever. I was like, let's just get everybody in the thing. We'll do the old fashioned thing. You guys can live tweet it and we'll make the front page of the paper again. And I had called my friend Josh Crutchmer, who designs a one of the New York Times.

And I was like, can you just help us put this together like on short notice? He was like, absolutely love to. And so we got we got everybody prepared for that night. And I was like, the best headlines we come up with that night, we'll put them in. We'll put them in a old fashioned, you know, onion front page and we'll put it out at the end of the debate. And then that fucking the world collapsed.

And I was like, can you just help us put this together like on short notice? He was like, absolutely love to. And so we got we got everybody prepared for that night. And I was like, the best headlines we come up with that night, we'll put them in. We'll put them in a old fashioned, you know, onion front page and we'll put it out at the end of the debate. And then that fucking the world collapsed.

I said, the onion's for sale. You know, who wants to help me buy this thing? I have $600. Lila Brilson, who's in Chicago, where the onion is based, emailed me and she was like, but seriously, how do we do this? Like, it's an institution. We can't let this thing die. It's like important to keep this thing alive. And I was like, let me just make some phone calls.

I said, the onion's for sale. You know, who wants to help me buy this thing? I have $600. Lila Brilson, who's in Chicago, where the onion is based, emailed me and she was like, but seriously, how do we do this? Like, it's an institution. We can't let this thing die. It's like important to keep this thing alive. And I was like, let me just make some phone calls.

They were just on the ball. They were it was like being in a room of comedy writers for that night was one of the most special nights of my life, I have to admit. And by the end of the night, we had like eight banger headlines. I think the top head was that report nuclear war sounds fucking amazing right now. It's really good. It was a good head. And that's because we all felt that way.

They were just on the ball. They were it was like being in a room of comedy writers for that night was one of the most special nights of my life, I have to admit. And by the end of the night, we had like eight banger headlines. I think the top head was that report nuclear war sounds fucking amazing right now. It's really good. It was a good head. And that's because we all felt that way.

I think the whole country felt that way. We made this front page, put it on Instagram, Twitter, and all these other places. And it got like, I don't know, what, over 100,000 likes on Instagram in like a couple hours. It was crazy. The response was crazy. And everyone was like... Man, I just I miss print. I miss print newspapers. I just miss this physical thing.

I think the whole country felt that way. We made this front page, put it on Instagram, Twitter, and all these other places. And it got like, I don't know, what, over 100,000 likes on Instagram in like a couple hours. It was crazy. The response was crazy. And everyone was like... Man, I just I miss print. I miss print newspapers. I just miss this physical thing.

That's when I knew this isn't just going to be like a collectible memorabilia thing. Like we're on. This is a moment like we're on to something. Jordan LaFleur, our executive editor, was like, it's like vinyl for Taylor Swift fans or something like that. But it's also like a little bit more than that. Like you get to sit with this thing.

That's when I knew this isn't just going to be like a collectible memorabilia thing. Like we're on. This is a moment like we're on to something. Jordan LaFleur, our executive editor, was like, it's like vinyl for Taylor Swift fans or something like that. But it's also like a little bit more than that. Like you get to sit with this thing.

The internet's such garbage and you just, I find myself walking by these stacks and just getting distracted for 15 minutes. You know this, I'm the most like terminally online person there is. And I pick up this thing, I'm just like reading like the dumbest little jokes from like 25 years ago on this thing. There's something magical about it.

The internet's such garbage and you just, I find myself walking by these stacks and just getting distracted for 15 minutes. You know this, I'm the most like terminally online person there is. And I pick up this thing, I'm just like reading like the dumbest little jokes from like 25 years ago on this thing. There's something magical about it.

We did an offsite, Danielle and me and Lila and Jeff and Chad, our energy from Jordan. And we went to like some place in Michigan and Scott, yep. And we just like threw the old papers around, like a bunch of archive papers around. Daniel did it all around this house. And constantly in like the downtime, you would just find yourself just like flipping through it. It's like the old days.

We did an offsite, Danielle and me and Lila and Jeff and Chad, our energy from Jordan. And we went to like some place in Michigan and Scott, yep. And we just like threw the old papers around, like a bunch of archive papers around. Daniel did it all around this house. And constantly in like the downtime, you would just find yourself just like flipping through it. It's like the old days.

Because on the next page, it's not like the New York Times or the Post or something. It's just like you're going to read some morose, awful thing on the next page. The next page, there's like eight more jokes. There's something just very nice about that. I don't know if this is perfect for every media company. I don't know. I'm not going to say that.

Because on the next page, it's not like the New York Times or the Post or something. It's just like you're going to read some morose, awful thing on the next page. The next page, there's like eight more jokes. There's something just very nice about that. I don't know if this is perfect for every media company. I don't know. I'm not going to say that.

You know, they should bring back the New York Sun or whatever. I don't know what to tell you. But for The Onion, it's perfect. You get a place in time that's marked by this thing. And it has like end to end, just page after page of jokes. It's just a nice thing to have in your hands.

You know, they should bring back the New York Sun or whatever. I don't know what to tell you. But for The Onion, it's perfect. You get a place in time that's marked by this thing. And it has like end to end, just page after page of jokes. It's just a nice thing to have in your hands.

So the first person I called was Danielle. She ran product Tumblr. when that turned all of our children weird in America.

So the first person I called was Danielle. She ran product Tumblr. when that turned all of our children weird in America.

In the best way. Oh, not like J.D. Vance weird. Like, you know, David Bowie weird.

In the best way. Oh, not like J.D. Vance weird. Like, you know, David Bowie weird.

We believe enough in the jokes that we knew people would just, if they got one on the street, they would tweet it and they would put it on their Instagram. That has definitely borne out in the last couple of days. It's hard to keep track of. It's not a quantifiable, measurable thing.

We believe enough in the jokes that we knew people would just, if they got one on the street, they would tweet it and they would put it on their Instagram. That has definitely borne out in the last couple of days. It's hard to keep track of. It's not a quantifiable, measurable thing.

But that's, again, we're in a lucky spot where we can do crazy stuff like this and just literally throw caution to the wind. We can just, you know, we can toss this stuff into the universe and, you know, believe in our writers and believe in our jokes. And so far it's worked out.

But that's, again, we're in a lucky spot where we can do crazy stuff like this and just literally throw caution to the wind. We can just, you know, we can toss this stuff into the universe and, you know, believe in our writers and believe in our jokes. And so far it's worked out.

Yeah, exactly. And I was like, I think this is a special thing that we can go and go out and get. So we spent the next few weeks just calling everybody we knew. And we're like, does this guy know a rich guy? Like, you know, how do we do this exactly? How does this actually take place?

Yeah, exactly. And I was like, I think this is a special thing that we can go and go out and get. So we spent the next few weeks just calling everybody we knew. And we're like, does this guy know a rich guy? Like, you know, how do we do this exactly? How does this actually take place?

Everything we do comes from a place of empathy, I would say, to some extent. And that has not changed. That's in part because Chad runs this place. He's been here for three decades. But when I grew up with The Onion, I grew up with during the Iraq War. My brother's 18th birthday was the day the Iraq War started. It's not a joke. The Onion was the only place that was just correct. Yeah.

Everything we do comes from a place of empathy, I would say, to some extent. And that has not changed. That's in part because Chad runs this place. He's been here for three decades. But when I grew up with The Onion, I grew up with during the Iraq War. My brother's 18th birthday was the day the Iraq War started. It's not a joke. The Onion was the only place that was just correct. Yeah.

Like it's just true. It was them and then eventually The Daily Show. But I was just – we were being constantly lied to by everybody. And The Onion was right and they were funny, which was good. It was a disarming and useful tactic to get people to – because their number one thing is that it's funny and that it comes from a place of empathy. That has not changed in any capacity.

Like it's just true. It was them and then eventually The Daily Show. But I was just – we were being constantly lied to by everybody. And The Onion was right and they were funny, which was good. It was a disarming and useful tactic to get people to – because their number one thing is that it's funny and that it comes from a place of empathy. That has not changed in any capacity.

In terms of like disinformation, a lot of it, as you know, I covered disinformation as a technological problem, a platform problem. Our stuff got dragged into that a couple months ago. Did you see the eating rocks thing, the AI thing? Yeah. A few months ago, if you Googled how many rocks should I eat per day on Google, you would get the answer was you should eat one to two rocks per day.

In terms of like disinformation, a lot of it, as you know, I covered disinformation as a technological problem, a platform problem. Our stuff got dragged into that a couple months ago. Did you see the eating rocks thing, the AI thing? Yeah. A few months ago, if you Googled how many rocks should I eat per day on Google, you would get the answer was you should eat one to two rocks per day.

And it came from an Onion article from many, many years ago that was a bit on lobbyist capture. It was like America's geologists say you should eat one to two rocks per day or a small pebble or something. That got captured by a fracking blog. It was just aggregated.

And it came from an Onion article from many, many years ago that was a bit on lobbyist capture. It was like America's geologists say you should eat one to two rocks per day or a small pebble or something. That got captured by a fracking blog. It was just aggregated.

The onion article was aggregated by a fracking blog, and that fracking blog got tossed into the AI feature at the top of Google's search results. That's a technological issue. And by the way, they owe us money for stealing our content, Google. Just letting you know that.

The onion article was aggregated by a fracking blog, and that fracking blog got tossed into the AI feature at the top of Google's search results. That's a technological issue. And by the way, they owe us money for stealing our content, Google. Just letting you know that.

Yeah. Thank you very much. And also, like, you know, I would hope that I've always said this as a disinformation reporter, like jokes and absurdism. That's not disinformation. That's fucking being alive. If you're out there saying that Sandy Hook didn't happen and here are these families names. And by the way, they live in this town. That's a coordinated harassment campaign.

Yeah. Thank you very much. And also, like, you know, I would hope that I've always said this as a disinformation reporter, like jokes and absurdism. That's not disinformation. That's fucking being alive. If you're out there saying that Sandy Hook didn't happen and here are these families names. And by the way, they live in this town. That's a coordinated harassment campaign.

Yeah. Daniel can talk about this. The very first people we called at all was the Onion Union because we had heard there was this whisper network that the union was this onerous and scary thing and all this stuff. And all they were really asking for, they were in negotiations, was to make sure that any content that was AI was labeled as such. That was really their big ask.

Yeah. Daniel can talk about this. The very first people we called at all was the Onion Union because we had heard there was this whisper network that the union was this onerous and scary thing and all this stuff. And all they were really asking for, they were in negotiations, was to make sure that any content that was AI was labeled as such. That was really their big ask.

That's different than what we do fundamentally. And there are other websites, too, that that do satire that I find fundamentally unfunny. But like, fuck, they're allowed to do whatever they want to do. Like, that's not disinformation. That's a whole different thing.

That's different than what we do fundamentally. And there are other websites, too, that that do satire that I find fundamentally unfunny. But like, fuck, they're allowed to do whatever they want to do. Like, that's not disinformation. That's a whole different thing.

Disinformation is it's a cottage industry of bullshit that is, by the way, only in existence because of the business model that we're moving away from.

Disinformation is it's a cottage industry of bullshit that is, by the way, only in existence because of the business model that we're moving away from.

I'm sure the onion would have been the climate in 2003. Yeah. would have been viewed as woke bullshit for being against the Iraq war. There's no question about that. And that to me is like some of the defining headlines of their time. 10 years ago, before woke bullshit was a sentence, you know, there's no way to prevent this as the only nation where this regularly happens.

I'm sure the onion would have been the climate in 2003. Yeah. would have been viewed as woke bullshit for being against the Iraq war. There's no question about that. And that to me is like some of the defining headlines of their time. 10 years ago, before woke bullshit was a sentence, you know, there's no way to prevent this as the only nation where this regularly happens.

Probably our most iconic headline of all time. You know, that would have been viewed as like woke bullshit by them too. The poison that is being pushed out by Elon Musk is his fault. And that's his thing they used to live with. But like, That's just not going to last. Being upset and impotent with rage and all that shit is a temporary feature of a failing political movement.

Probably our most iconic headline of all time. You know, that would have been viewed as like woke bullshit by them too. The poison that is being pushed out by Elon Musk is his fault. And that's his thing they used to live with. But like, That's just not going to last. Being upset and impotent with rage and all that shit is a temporary feature of a failing political movement.

And we're we're an institution. We don't give a shit about the whims of crazy people.

And we're we're an institution. We don't give a shit about the whims of crazy people.

I mean, we took a lot of shit for going after Joe Biden in the last couple of years. There's no doubt about that. But the staff knows their role. They know what to do. And if you again, if you come at it from like an ethos, it's it changes things. Right. Your job is to challenge power and in any real way. And also just make jokes about everybody. Danielle is holding up an onion headlight at me.

I mean, we took a lot of shit for going after Joe Biden in the last couple of years. There's no doubt about that. But the staff knows their role. They know what to do. And if you again, if you come at it from like an ethos, it's it changes things. Right. Your job is to challenge power and in any real way. And also just make jokes about everybody. Danielle is holding up an onion headlight at me.

Yeah. What's what's the last? Can you read through the last part of the Q&A? The very last. This is in the print edition that you're distributing. In the print edition. Yeah.

Yeah. What's what's the last? Can you read through the last part of the Q&A? The very last. This is in the print edition that you're distributing. In the print edition. Yeah.

And we're like, that's not onerous. That's regular. That's like a good idea. Yeah. So then we kept pounding on the door and we realized like this might be like a very good opportunity to save this like very beautiful American thing. A couple of weeks later, we got put in touch with Jeff Lawson, the guy who created Twilio. He had some time on his hands recently, and he also really loved the onion.

And we're like, that's not onerous. That's regular. That's like a good idea. Yeah. So then we kept pounding on the door and we realized like this might be like a very good opportunity to save this like very beautiful American thing. A couple of weeks later, we got put in touch with Jeff Lawson, the guy who created Twilio. He had some time on his hands recently, and he also really loved the onion.

What's the answer, by the way? What's the answer?

What's the answer, by the way? What's the answer?

Our big thing is we got to we got to move forward. I do recommend you like you. I can't believe I'm fucking saying this. Look at our tick tock. Like, honest to God, like we are we're building the foundation so we can move forward and build forward. And it's going to stop being 2016 at some point.

Our big thing is we got to we got to move forward. I do recommend you like you. I can't believe I'm fucking saying this. Look at our tick tock. Like, honest to God, like we are we're building the foundation so we can move forward and build forward. And it's going to stop being 2016 at some point.

And I think we're we're in a prime position to pretend like those eight years never happened and continue to move forward from there. Look, these guys are ready for the fight. And again, I think if you pick up the Kamala Harris interview in the paper, you'll see kind of where we're headed. Apparently, give us $5. Give us $5.

And I think we're we're in a prime position to pretend like those eight years never happened and continue to move forward from there. Look, these guys are ready for the fight. And again, I think if you pick up the Kamala Harris interview in the paper, you'll see kind of where we're headed. Apparently, give us $5. Give us $5.

Always wanted to buy it, but didn't really know what to do with it and how to do it. And we're like, we have some pretty good plans for it if we want to talk about it. Within two and a half months, basically, from me posting on Blue Sky and calling Danielle, we were in charge of the onion. So kind of a wild ride.

Always wanted to buy it, but didn't really know what to do with it and how to do it. And we're like, we have some pretty good plans for it if we want to talk about it. Within two and a half months, basically, from me posting on Blue Sky and calling Danielle, we were in charge of the onion. So kind of a wild ride.

Yeah. And in terms of the business model, by the way, I just want to bring up Scott was the COO, right? Daniel of Gawker?

Yeah. And in terms of the business model, by the way, I just want to bring up Scott was the COO, right? Daniel of Gawker?

In terms of standing up a brand new company, which is what we had to do, having Danielle and Jeff and Scott around was kind of a miracle. But, you know, going into it, this did not just come out of thin air. We had all worked at these big, gigantic places and were like, you know, if we ran this place, what would it actually look like? We wouldn't be doing this stuff or whatever, right?

In terms of standing up a brand new company, which is what we had to do, having Danielle and Jeff and Scott around was kind of a miracle. But, you know, going into it, this did not just come out of thin air. We had all worked at these big, gigantic places and were like, you know, if we ran this place, what would it actually look like? We wouldn't be doing this stuff or whatever, right?

I think everybody has that thought process. And we went into it being like, okay, so what would we actually do then? Like, what is working in our spaces? So a big model that we had in our heads was Dropout. They used to be called College Humor. They were owned by IAC. And IAC, Barry Diller just like gave up on them a few years ago, right before the pandemic started. And

I think everybody has that thought process. And we went into it being like, okay, so what would we actually do then? Like, what is working in our spaces? So a big model that we had in our heads was Dropout. They used to be called College Humor. They were owned by IAC. And IAC, Barry Diller just like gave up on them a few years ago, right before the pandemic started. And

One of their employees at the time, this guy, Sam Reich, Reich, sorry, Reich, Reich, Reich, Reich. He's going to get so angry that I mispronounced his name. He's the son of Robert Reich, like the former labor secretary. Not a joke. He was like, you know, what if we just leaned into what we're good at, basically? And they they stood up a new subscription service for what they're good at.

One of their employees at the time, this guy, Sam Reich, Reich, sorry, Reich, Reich, Reich, Reich. He's going to get so angry that I mispronounced his name. He's the son of Robert Reich, like the former labor secretary. Not a joke. He was like, you know, what if we just leaned into what we're good at, basically? And they they stood up a new subscription service for what they're good at.

And they have a bunch of shows that are really good. They're like game shows and all these other things. And they're like six bucks a month. Our, you know, people are developing parasocial relationships with our talent. They'll give us that.

And they have a bunch of shows that are really good. They're like game shows and all these other things. And they're like six bucks a month. Our, you know, people are developing parasocial relationships with our talent. They'll give us that.

And I think, you know, in a couple of years, they just leaned all the way into it, leaned all the way into, you know, big social moments that they do on like YouTube shorts and Instagram and stuff. Yeah. And now one of their shows has sold out two nights in a row at Madison Square Garden. They have like a million subs.

And I think, you know, in a couple of years, they just leaned all the way into it, leaned all the way into, you know, big social moments that they do on like YouTube shorts and Instagram and stuff. Yeah. And now one of their shows has sold out two nights in a row at Madison Square Garden. They have like a million subs.

And they've just leaned into the stuff that they like to do and their audience likes. Their audience has paid up for it and they're happy. They like to give them money because that's what it's about, right? That's what it was about before people got in their own heads about it.

And they've just leaned into the stuff that they like to do and their audience likes. Their audience has paid up for it and they're happy. They like to give them money because that's what it's about, right? That's what it was about before people got in their own heads about it.

content on the internet in the last 10, 15 years, trying to play this like big arbitrage game and like basically gambling with content and stuff. And we can do that. Like, it's not just them, you know, it's Defector and Aftermath and 404 and these places that were progenitors to this model. Like we can do this stuff first.

content on the internet in the last 10, 15 years, trying to play this like big arbitrage game and like basically gambling with content and stuff. And we can do that. Like, it's not just them, you know, it's Defector and Aftermath and 404 and these places that were progenitors to this model. Like we can do this stuff first.

We can lean heavily on our subscribers and like try to make them really happy and give them something in the mail. Yeah. But we can do this other stuff too. We can make video. We can sell ads the old-fashioned way. That's what we decided to do is like stand up a company that's based on people genuinely liking our content and not like tricking people into clicking stuff all the time.

We can lean heavily on our subscribers and like try to make them really happy and give them something in the mail. Yeah. But we can do this other stuff too. We can make video. We can sell ads the old-fashioned way. That's what we decided to do is like stand up a company that's based on people genuinely liking our content and not like tricking people into clicking stuff all the time.

And that's where we're at.

And that's where we're at.

You know, we've already made $500 billion.

You know, we've already made $500 billion.

We came into it and part of the whole dance here with him was figuring each other out and being like, are you really serious about this? Which is like preserving this thing that we really love from our childhood, you know, or preserving this way of speaking about the world and thinking about the world. We both realized like, yeah, we're both really serious about this thing.

We came into it and part of the whole dance here with him was figuring each other out and being like, are you really serious about this? Which is like preserving this thing that we really love from our childhood, you know, or preserving this way of speaking about the world and thinking about the world. We both realized like, yeah, we're both really serious about this thing.

We really want this thing to live and be a good, sustainable business that can churn out America's best comedy writers. That's what it's done for 30 plus years. And we're now at this place where we do trust each other. That's what this is about. And it's working. And it's good. By the way, it's good.

We really want this thing to live and be a good, sustainable business that can churn out America's best comedy writers. That's what it's done for 30 plus years. And we're now at this place where we do trust each other. That's what this is about. And it's working. And it's good. By the way, it's good.

Like it's having a good, sustainable business that makes money and is not tied to like is not trying to get like an exit with like the Saudi Arabian wealth fund. Like that's nice. It's a nice life. That is a way of running a business. And that's what we're going to try to do.

Like it's having a good, sustainable business that makes money and is not tied to like is not trying to get like an exit with like the Saudi Arabian wealth fund. Like that's nice. It's a nice life. That is a way of running a business. And that's what we're going to try to do.

No offense to those people, but it's much more fun. The conversations you're having as the owner of The Onion is a lot more fun than the owner of National Geographic or whatever. Like, I don't know. So, like, I understand it from his side. And, like, there's a nice benefit that it's, like, a pretty good business.

No offense to those people, but it's much more fun. The conversations you're having as the owner of The Onion is a lot more fun than the owner of National Geographic or whatever. Like, I don't know. So, like, I understand it from his side. And, like, there's a nice benefit that it's, like, a pretty good business.

I hope to embarrass him with some ridiculous headline that I have to stand up for that I have nothing to do with. That's my goal.

I hope to embarrass him with some ridiculous headline that I have to stand up for that I have nothing to do with. That's my goal.

Yeah, I was extremely excited, especially with these guys. A lot of what we deal with is people who just bend over backwards to help the onion. Like the MG people, they just wanted to help the onion. It is a special place in people's hearts. And just in the same way that we jumped in trying to save this thing, everybody else does.

Everybody else has their favorite onion headline in their heads, so they really wanted to do it. So there are definitely some skills and stuff that I had to pick up and learn along the way. My reporting was always tech adjacent, so I knew the verbiage. But it's service level always, right? So I know enough to not be completely humiliated 85% of the time.

And thankfully, Danielle and Leela fill in those gaps really well. But at the end of the day, the thing that we know how to do that this place knows how to do is sort of drive the conversation and, you know, say the dumbest possible sentence about what's going on on a day to day basis. At the end of the day, if we can't turn that into a business, what are we doing?

That's a very it's a very fun life. That's what I did over the last few months. I knew that we needed a new website. Danielle knew it more than anybody else. And we did that immediately. And then the more that we heard from people, we were just really receptive and open to feedback about what people expected from The Onion, right? What do people really want?

How is this possible? I was proud to be an American or something. I was just like, oh, how is this happening? And I wanted to bring back that feeling. The staff was so excited about it. They had been living in this content farm hell for the last few years where they were literally trying to get people to click through on a slideshow to refresh programmatic advertising.

And you can run a business like that, but it drives you insane. And the economics of that were also deteriorating. So we were like, what is going to make the staff happy? What's going to make the people on the other end of this happy? People, you know, helping us run a business from the consumer side happy. And what do we want to do? And the paper was the obvious thing.

So then we just had to like fill in the gaps about how do we do this? How do we get a website that can sell this thing and also make it so people actually want to click on our stories?

What we said at the beginning is that we need to relay the foundation here, right? And the foundation is the paper. And this site on a day-to-day basis, but if we can have a paper that basically pays for the writer's room and then do all this extra weird stuff on top, then this is a really good business.

Like over the years, they were best when they were nimble because they had the foundation, right? They made ClickHole because the site was doing OK because of Univision and all this stuff. They made O and N because they got an influx from YouTube money. But the site was doing okay at the time. It was doing all right. So now, like, how do we lay that foundation again?

The foundation will now be the paper. And then on top of that, we can take big risks to do weird stuff. That's the way we look at it, basically.

It's several things. And, you know, if you're trying to get 20 million people to look at a picture of a shoe there, that's not 20 million people. You know, it's maybe half that at best.

Exactly. Right. And, you know, I'm a lot of this is driven by good reporting. Craig Silverman back from the BuzzFeed days, networks of ProPublica. It's a lot of it is a racket, man. Like it's not real. If it isn't a house of cards that says more about us in the economy than I want to think about. So I do want to get out ahead of it because it was most of our balance sheet.

We don't want to be a part of that economy if we if we don't have to. That's it. Like, you know, when we got the company, we got the P&L and we got the contracts and all this stuff. You do look at it's extremely seductive, right? You see like, oh, wow, like you really can just make money letting it roll in. That is a way of doing business. It's just not the way I want things to work.

Maybe this is like a very like hopium millennial bullshit thing. But like I want people to like us, therefore pay us money to give us the thing. I want this to be a simpler business. I think there's like – you know, there are two economies near it. One is like a real economy where you can pay someone for goods and services that you like. And then there's this other one that is fictional.

They were living in the second one and – It also also crushes your soul to try to feed that beast. It was doing that to our writers. Yeah. And, you know, the weight has lifted off of them recently. And we want to we have some sort of responsibility to the world to turn out good comedy writers. It can't just be getting them to tell people to make the 14th page of a slideshow.

It has to be them actually attacking the world in the way they do it.

We're four days into reading cross tabs on this, so I wish we had better answers. But, like, it's both. And definitely the response that we've gotten is all across the map, right? As a previous disinformation reporter, I used to say this, you know, the lies are free and the good information is behind the paywall. And that's part of the fascist economy of information where –

The one of the things that becomes a commodity that is hidden behind paywalls, just like the water wars in the future is information. You have to pay to read Puck or Casey's newsletter or whatever stuff, stuff with good stuff in it. And Pizzagate is free. I was always worried about that.

But there is sort of a hybrid model here where you can pay people because you like them and you're paying for the ability to make this stuff free for future generations. And you still get a nice, like, you get a good thing in your hands. For us, it's a newspaper in the mail. Like, the margins are pretty good. And you can show a sign of support. You can develop a relationship with us.

But you can also, you're doing a service by keeping this thing free in the future. And that's really what we want to do is like so far, a lot of people have come out to do that in terms of like who is actually paying for it. You know, we're seeing people who are saying I'm 20 years old or something like a couple of people said this. And my grandmother had a stack of these in the basement.

That's how I even know what this is. And I'm paying for this. And I got a gift gift subscription for my grandmother. Right. It's a cross generational thing. Everybody's version of the onion. This is a really specific thing for us is very different. Everybody's favorite headline of the onion is usually something I've never fucking heard of in my life.

It's from 15 years ago and it's some like narrow joke about like Arby's or something. I have no idea. But the beauty of the place is that it adapts the times and everybody has their own sentimental relationship with it. So far, we've seen that, you know, in the in the bare bones crosstab reading we've read, you know, it's literally every single generation. We get a lot of Gen X men.

We get a lot of Gen Z women who liked our Palestine coverage. Like it's all over the place.

All of us came to that conclusion, all of us.

Yeah, our editor-in-chief has been there for 27 years. Yeah.

The whole point of this from the very beginning is to protect their process. We didn't want to come in and change anything in that regard because the process is – It's a way of doing things that actually I think other places could really learn from and help from. I just want to walk through their daily process for writing headlines. They come in every day.

There's either one or two meetings depending on the day. And then they write. So usually it's around like 190 headlines. They are put into a Google form and completely anonymized. Then from there, it's trimmed down a little bit by one of the editors per day. Then they go in the room and they read them out loud, all of them.

And if it gets a laugh or if it's like that's something that's a character we're going to bring back or they're going to talk through it, they check it off. And then they whittle those down over and over and over again. By the end of the meeting, there's usually, what, Danielle, like 10 max, 5 to 10?

And then those get written out. And if the copy's not good or if it's just a nib or something, that gets whittled down to like three or four per day. That comes from that contributor network that has like legit famous people in it or it comes from the people in the room. And then only after all that do they go back and they're like, that guy wrote that thing. Yeah. That's how meritocratic this is.

And if I came in there and I was like, oh, I have a better way of doing this, I would be a fucking maniac. So keeping that process in place was our number one goal, and we've not changed that in any capacity. Our whole thing, we just said to them, we just need to give you more avenues for jokes. We need to give you money for video. We need to, again, make a newspaper or something.

Whatever you guys want to do, you need to be in more... spaces to do that. So it's not just headlines in the internet, something much bigger. That's the thing that we're doing is we're protecting a process that can feed into much bigger things.

Look, I try to get a feel for what everyone wants first. There is a level of selflessness, especially with this thing. I view this thing as a museum. Directly outside this door, there is 30 years of newspapers and boxes. And it would be a level of true egomania to think that I could do it better.

So the first thing we did was we brought in everybody that we could find from the 30 years of The Onion and talked to them. And we tried to listen to what they think The Onion is, and we tried to get every angle of it all the way around. And then we tried to listen to people, kids on TikTok who read our headlines and do the thing where they just point at it.

And we listened to those people too, right? What do they think The Onion is? People who've had this their whole lives. This is already an institution in their life, and they view it that way too. And then we just try to synthesize it. And we don't try to like stray from that too hard or don't try to make business decisions that interfere with that. We try to protect the sanctity of the thing.

And they're like, OK, well, how do we protect this and make it a business on top of it? And that's always been my thing for the last few months is make sure that they have what they need to succeed. And. That's really the whole process. I wish I should write it down and have a book that is an airport called Drive or something. Yeah. But I don't have that yet. I'll get back to you on that.

Oh, that's great.

Oh, my God. Yeah, of course. Danielle can talk about this, but we do have a call every single morning at 10 in the morning because she's in New York. Lila and I are in Chicago. So every day we try to ward off what I call what I say with Danielle, I call bureauitis, which is like.

I learned this from an old journalism professor, but like he was talking about how people – if you're like the London Bureau correspondent at the New York Times, you're king shit of fuck city in London, baby. You're walking around, coolest person in the world. Then you go back to New York and – You're like, hi, guys. Our number one priority is like everyone remembers that Danielle did this.

Like Danielle made this newspaper. Danielle made this website. So like a lot of that is there too. But yeah, I want to let Danielle talk about it because like, you know, friends becoming business partners is a crazy thing to do, especially when you're on this kind of timeline.

It's also worse because I'm from the news. So I'm always like, if we don't get this done by an hour, no one's going to care. That's a new thing for me that I have to get over.

Back in January, I was reading Adweek. I was writing a very – I don't know if the book was bad, but the process of writing the book was miserable. It was writing about Nazis on the internet and stuff. You know those people.

I'm sick of those people, terrible. So I was reading Adweek and I saw that The Onion was for sale. And this was around the time where things were just shuttering. Sports Illustrated and Jezebel just shuttered. And I was from the same company, Gio owned Jezebel. Or things were being turned into like AI slop farms or Elon Musk was buying it, worst case scenario. I had posted on Blue Sky.

Yeah. Yeah. Also, like it's a whole writer's room full of like newspaper. There's two people in this writer's room of 15 people who designed a college newspaper. But also, like we know, you know, really when I knew this was going to work, we had already started going down this path. And I was like, let's do a test.

Night of the first debate, which we didn't know was going to be like the most consequential night of 2024, but whatever. I was like, let's just get everybody in the thing. We'll do the old fashioned thing. You guys can live tweet it and we'll make the front page of the paper again. And I had called my friend Josh Crutchmer, who designs a one of the New York Times.

And I was like, can you just help us put this together like on short notice? He was like, absolutely love to. And so we got we got everybody prepared for that night. And I was like, the best headlines we come up with that night, we'll put them in. We'll put them in a old fashioned, you know, onion front page and we'll put it out at the end of the debate. And then that fucking the world collapsed.

I said, the onion's for sale. You know, who wants to help me buy this thing? I have $600. Lila Brilson, who's in Chicago, where the onion is based, emailed me and she was like, but seriously, how do we do this? Like, it's an institution. We can't let this thing die. It's like important to keep this thing alive. And I was like, let me just make some phone calls.

They were just on the ball. They were it was like being in a room of comedy writers for that night was one of the most special nights of my life, I have to admit. And by the end of the night, we had like eight banger headlines. I think the top head was that report nuclear war sounds fucking amazing right now. It's really good. It was a good head. And that's because we all felt that way.

I think the whole country felt that way. We made this front page, put it on Instagram, Twitter, and all these other places. And it got like, I don't know, what, over 100,000 likes on Instagram in like a couple hours. It was crazy. The response was crazy. And everyone was like... Man, I just I miss print. I miss print newspapers. I just miss this physical thing.

That's when I knew this isn't just going to be like a collectible memorabilia thing. Like we're on. This is a moment like we're on to something. Jordan LaFleur, our executive editor, was like, it's like vinyl for Taylor Swift fans or something like that. But it's also like a little bit more than that. Like you get to sit with this thing.

The internet's such garbage and you just, I find myself walking by these stacks and just getting distracted for 15 minutes. You know this, I'm the most like terminally online person there is. And I pick up this thing, I'm just like reading like the dumbest little jokes from like 25 years ago on this thing. There's something magical about it.

We did an offsite, Danielle and me and Lila and Jeff and Chad, our energy from Jordan. And we went to like some place in Michigan and Scott, yep. And we just like threw the old papers around, like a bunch of archive papers around. Daniel did it all around this house. And constantly in like the downtime, you would just find yourself just like flipping through it. It's like the old days.

Because on the next page, it's not like the New York Times or the Post or something. It's just like you're going to read some morose, awful thing on the next page. The next page, there's like eight more jokes. There's something just very nice about that. I don't know if this is perfect for every media company. I don't know. I'm not going to say that.

You know, they should bring back the New York Sun or whatever. I don't know what to tell you. But for The Onion, it's perfect. You get a place in time that's marked by this thing. And it has like end to end, just page after page of jokes. It's just a nice thing to have in your hands.

So the first person I called was Danielle. She ran product Tumblr. when that turned all of our children weird in America.

In the best way. Oh, not like J.D. Vance weird. Like, you know, David Bowie weird.

We believe enough in the jokes that we knew people would just, if they got one on the street, they would tweet it and they would put it on their Instagram. That has definitely borne out in the last couple of days. It's hard to keep track of. It's not a quantifiable, measurable thing.

But that's, again, we're in a lucky spot where we can do crazy stuff like this and just literally throw caution to the wind. We can just, you know, we can toss this stuff into the universe and, you know, believe in our writers and believe in our jokes. And so far it's worked out.

Yeah, exactly. And I was like, I think this is a special thing that we can go and go out and get. So we spent the next few weeks just calling everybody we knew. And we're like, does this guy know a rich guy? Like, you know, how do we do this exactly? How does this actually take place?

Everything we do comes from a place of empathy, I would say, to some extent. And that has not changed. That's in part because Chad runs this place. He's been here for three decades. But when I grew up with The Onion, I grew up with during the Iraq War. My brother's 18th birthday was the day the Iraq War started. It's not a joke. The Onion was the only place that was just correct. Yeah.

Like it's just true. It was them and then eventually The Daily Show. But I was just – we were being constantly lied to by everybody. And The Onion was right and they were funny, which was good. It was a disarming and useful tactic to get people to – because their number one thing is that it's funny and that it comes from a place of empathy. That has not changed in any capacity.

In terms of like disinformation, a lot of it, as you know, I covered disinformation as a technological problem, a platform problem. Our stuff got dragged into that a couple months ago. Did you see the eating rocks thing, the AI thing? Yeah. A few months ago, if you Googled how many rocks should I eat per day on Google, you would get the answer was you should eat one to two rocks per day.

And it came from an Onion article from many, many years ago that was a bit on lobbyist capture. It was like America's geologists say you should eat one to two rocks per day or a small pebble or something. That got captured by a fracking blog. It was just aggregated.

The onion article was aggregated by a fracking blog, and that fracking blog got tossed into the AI feature at the top of Google's search results. That's a technological issue. And by the way, they owe us money for stealing our content, Google. Just letting you know that.

Yeah. Thank you very much. And also, like, you know, I would hope that I've always said this as a disinformation reporter, like jokes and absurdism. That's not disinformation. That's fucking being alive. If you're out there saying that Sandy Hook didn't happen and here are these families names. And by the way, they live in this town. That's a coordinated harassment campaign.

Yeah. Daniel can talk about this. The very first people we called at all was the Onion Union because we had heard there was this whisper network that the union was this onerous and scary thing and all this stuff. And all they were really asking for, they were in negotiations, was to make sure that any content that was AI was labeled as such. That was really their big ask.

That's different than what we do fundamentally. And there are other websites, too, that that do satire that I find fundamentally unfunny. But like, fuck, they're allowed to do whatever they want to do. Like, that's not disinformation. That's a whole different thing.

Disinformation is it's a cottage industry of bullshit that is, by the way, only in existence because of the business model that we're moving away from.

I'm sure the onion would have been the climate in 2003. Yeah. would have been viewed as woke bullshit for being against the Iraq war. There's no question about that. And that to me is like some of the defining headlines of their time. 10 years ago, before woke bullshit was a sentence, you know, there's no way to prevent this as the only nation where this regularly happens.

Probably our most iconic headline of all time. You know, that would have been viewed as like woke bullshit by them too. The poison that is being pushed out by Elon Musk is his fault. And that's his thing they used to live with. But like, That's just not going to last. Being upset and impotent with rage and all that shit is a temporary feature of a failing political movement.

And we're we're an institution. We don't give a shit about the whims of crazy people.

I mean, we took a lot of shit for going after Joe Biden in the last couple of years. There's no doubt about that. But the staff knows their role. They know what to do. And if you again, if you come at it from like an ethos, it's it changes things. Right. Your job is to challenge power and in any real way. And also just make jokes about everybody. Danielle is holding up an onion headlight at me.

Yeah. What's what's the last? Can you read through the last part of the Q&A? The very last. This is in the print edition that you're distributing. In the print edition. Yeah.

And we're like, that's not onerous. That's regular. That's like a good idea. Yeah. So then we kept pounding on the door and we realized like this might be like a very good opportunity to save this like very beautiful American thing. A couple of weeks later, we got put in touch with Jeff Lawson, the guy who created Twilio. He had some time on his hands recently, and he also really loved the onion.

What's the answer, by the way? What's the answer?

Our big thing is we got to we got to move forward. I do recommend you like you. I can't believe I'm fucking saying this. Look at our tick tock. Like, honest to God, like we are we're building the foundation so we can move forward and build forward. And it's going to stop being 2016 at some point.

And I think we're we're in a prime position to pretend like those eight years never happened and continue to move forward from there. Look, these guys are ready for the fight. And again, I think if you pick up the Kamala Harris interview in the paper, you'll see kind of where we're headed. Apparently, give us $5. Give us $5.

Always wanted to buy it, but didn't really know what to do with it and how to do it. And we're like, we have some pretty good plans for it if we want to talk about it. Within two and a half months, basically, from me posting on Blue Sky and calling Danielle, we were in charge of the onion. So kind of a wild ride.

Yeah. And in terms of the business model, by the way, I just want to bring up Scott was the COO, right? Daniel of Gawker?

In terms of standing up a brand new company, which is what we had to do, having Danielle and Jeff and Scott around was kind of a miracle. But, you know, going into it, this did not just come out of thin air. We had all worked at these big, gigantic places and were like, you know, if we ran this place, what would it actually look like? We wouldn't be doing this stuff or whatever, right?

I think everybody has that thought process. And we went into it being like, okay, so what would we actually do then? Like, what is working in our spaces? So a big model that we had in our heads was Dropout. They used to be called College Humor. They were owned by IAC. And IAC, Barry Diller just like gave up on them a few years ago, right before the pandemic started. And

One of their employees at the time, this guy, Sam Reich, Reich, sorry, Reich, Reich, Reich, Reich. He's going to get so angry that I mispronounced his name. He's the son of Robert Reich, like the former labor secretary. Not a joke. He was like, you know, what if we just leaned into what we're good at, basically? And they they stood up a new subscription service for what they're good at.

And they have a bunch of shows that are really good. They're like game shows and all these other things. And they're like six bucks a month. Our, you know, people are developing parasocial relationships with our talent. They'll give us that.

And I think, you know, in a couple of years, they just leaned all the way into it, leaned all the way into, you know, big social moments that they do on like YouTube shorts and Instagram and stuff. Yeah. And now one of their shows has sold out two nights in a row at Madison Square Garden. They have like a million subs.

And they've just leaned into the stuff that they like to do and their audience likes. Their audience has paid up for it and they're happy. They like to give them money because that's what it's about, right? That's what it was about before people got in their own heads about it.

content on the internet in the last 10, 15 years, trying to play this like big arbitrage game and like basically gambling with content and stuff. And we can do that. Like, it's not just them, you know, it's Defector and Aftermath and 404 and these places that were progenitors to this model. Like we can do this stuff first.

We can lean heavily on our subscribers and like try to make them really happy and give them something in the mail. Yeah. But we can do this other stuff too. We can make video. We can sell ads the old-fashioned way. That's what we decided to do is like stand up a company that's based on people genuinely liking our content and not like tricking people into clicking stuff all the time.

And that's where we're at.

You know, we've already made $500 billion.

We came into it and part of the whole dance here with him was figuring each other out and being like, are you really serious about this? Which is like preserving this thing that we really love from our childhood, you know, or preserving this way of speaking about the world and thinking about the world. We both realized like, yeah, we're both really serious about this thing.

We really want this thing to live and be a good, sustainable business that can churn out America's best comedy writers. That's what it's done for 30 plus years. And we're now at this place where we do trust each other. That's what this is about. And it's working. And it's good. By the way, it's good.

Like it's having a good, sustainable business that makes money and is not tied to like is not trying to get like an exit with like the Saudi Arabian wealth fund. Like that's nice. It's a nice life. That is a way of running a business. And that's what we're going to try to do.

No offense to those people, but it's much more fun. The conversations you're having as the owner of The Onion is a lot more fun than the owner of National Geographic or whatever. Like, I don't know. So, like, I understand it from his side. And, like, there's a nice benefit that it's, like, a pretty good business.

I hope to embarrass him with some ridiculous headline that I have to stand up for that I have nothing to do with. That's my goal.