The Onion brought back its print edition and the gamble is paying off

I kinda have the print edition of the Onion to thank for my career.

Back in 2000, I had a "100% travel" tech consulting job. My favorite part of the week was finally getting back home to Chicago, grabbing a sub at a sandwich shop, and casually reading that week's edition cover to cover Saturday afternoon.

One particular week, there was an ad for a local tech company (ThoughtWorks). I don't remember there being many tech job ads in the Onion at the time, so it stood out. I remember the ad copy being something like "Does your life suck, or just your job? Work here instead." I immediately applied, interviewed, eventually got an offer, quit my other job, and started at ThoughtWorks. It was a massive upgrade.

A few years later, I got to lead an internal dev team, and a spin-off project (Selenium) came out of that.

Long story long: No Onion, no job at ThoughtWorks, no Selenium.

Glad a new generation gets to enjoy leisurely reading fake news and seeing where it takes them in life.

I used to get the print edition of The Economist. It really does feel a lot different from browsing reddit/HN/etc.

* You're reading in a linear format. Fewer distractions.

* No tabsplosion. No clickbait titles.

* Little to zero internet drama.

* You're leaned back on the couch instead of hunched over a computer or phone.

* You're closer to reading about a random/representative sample of what's going on in the world, as opposed to the "dog bites man" internet story of the week. Fewer breathless takes on everything.

The nice thing about a print magazine is that it actually does its job of giving you a break from your day, instead of turning into a distraction timesuck. It's easy to put down after reading an article or two that strikes your interest.

Unfortunately I did notice a bit of a slide in quality as The Economist started adopting the "shove our opinion down your throat" editorial style that's super common online.

The way they will incorporate an absurd mix of expressive poetic technical and satirical writing in the same piece — to the point of belaboring it and wearing you down until you can’t help but laugh is what I love. Compendiums off Amazon used books are about $8 I bought a stack a few years ago. “What Makes Anna so Beautiful in the Moonlight?” is a favorite for some reason (nerd explains beauty). Also the Onion Film Standard “The Onion Looks Back at E.T.” Maybe this means Nathan Fielder will resurrect his short lived hardcopy newspaper “The Diarrhea Times” too if there’s an appetite!

Game Informer is doing the same. I got the most recent copy and it was just a breath of fresh air. Articles written for their content, not to fill some quota or drive clicks. It was a month late (mostly stuff about SGF) but it didn’t matter. I got to read what these passionate writers thought of the games and demos there and that was a great read, even if it wasn’t “news”.

As one of the subscribers, I can confirm that I’m satisfied with the product. And looking forward to each edition of America’s finest news source.

We would snag copies of The Onion at the University of Minnesota many many years ago. Always fun. I’m glad they brought it back. It was always a great casual read

Respect to Jeff Lawson, the quality of the Onion, which had grown a bit stale in the preceding decade, has noticeably improved since he purchased the company last year.

Print subscription - $99 (or pay more) / year:

https://membership.theonion.com/

First time I read The Onion was at University of Wisconsin, Madison in the 1980s. There was no "online edition" at that time

Even as a student newspaper it was remarkably funny

Makes sense, we have moved so far into the digital space where articles are short, filled with ads and there's an article on almost everything.

Print goes back to considered articles for that point in time, limited ads that don't jump out in front of me and something that takes me away from a computer screen which is different. Sometimes I need different.

Guess I know what subscription the wife is getting for Christmas.

Reminds me of an interview with one of its founders who said it's becoming increasingly difficult to parody Kafkaesque insanity. They said something like humor is a temporary salve from the awfulness of reality, even in the face of terrible, repetitive occurrences like mass shootings that aren't themselves funny at all.

And, meanwhile, South Park hasn't really evolved and misses the opportunity for satirical social commentary with less offensive, cheap shots rather than brutally criticizing and challenging the core flaws like idiocy, meanness, and selfishness of corrupt, hypocritical, and criminal political personalities.