How The Onion Changed the World

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Funny Because It's True - Book

'Funny Because It's True: How the Onion Created Modern American News Satire' by Christine Wenc

Is The Onion part of Milwaukee history? Back in the ‘90s and early ‘00s, The Onion was everywhere in this town and as revealed in the new book Funny Because It’s True, there were several Cream City connections. Andy Dhuey was from suburban Milwaukee and more or less lived in The Onion’s office in early days, doing this or that. In 1990 Rich Dahm, from Waukesha, became editor. Most of The Onion’s early staff had Wisconsin roots.

But as author Christine Wenc insists, with good reason, Madison was the ideal springboard for The Onion. “The Madison economy back then was like a native midwestern prairie ecosystem,” she writes. “The diversity, creativity, local focus, and interconnectedness made it healthy and resilient.”

Whether or not a particular Midwestern sensibility was at work, The Onion’s founders were weisenheimers drawn to the UW-Madison campus. The early issues in 1988 were often the definition of sophomoric, but by 1989 writer Matt Cook hit upon The Onion’s formula for success and claim to importance. From then on, The Onion didn’t just spoof American politics and society. It satirized them by satirizing the way reality was covered by the mainstream media. It’s the banality of journalism school reporting highlighted in bold yellow markers, the matter-of-fact delivery of trivia and unacknowledged catastrophe, complete with boilerplate quotes and the dogma of including both sides, even if one side insisted that the Earth was flat. Their stories were funny, often provocative. But in a portent of troubling things to come, some casual readers were hard put to distinguish The Onion’s intentionally fake news from the real thing. Wenc wonders whether The Onion inadvertently contributed to the current political climate.

Funny Because It’s True is a first-person account. Wenc was part of The Onion’s staff in its early years and followed its evolution with keen interest. She invokes the archetype of trickster to explain The Onion’s role. Tricksters are mischief-makers in every mythology, slippery and eager to upset expectations. However, the ground has shifted. Can satire work in a world that has become grossly absurd? Wenc wonders but retains hope. In 2024, The Onion, now Chicago based digital media company, brought back its print edition in a limited press run.

Funny Because It’s True: How the Onion Created Modern American News Satire is published by Running Press.

Buy Funny Because It's True on Amazon here.

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