In an outcome beyond parody, The Onion has bought Infowars

When reality becomes stranger than satire, maybe the satirists can teach us something. The Onion confirmed on Thursday that its parent company bought Infowars, the disgraced purveyor of Sandy Hook misinformation and vendor of pseudoscience supplements. The Onion posted on Bluesky that it plans to transform the rebooted Infowars into “a very funny, very stupid website.”

The Onion says it received the blessing of the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting to scoop up Infowars in a bankruptcy auction. Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit founded in the massacre’s aftermath, will reportedly advertise on the rebooted site. Infowars founder Alex Jones was found liable in 2022 for nearly $1.5 billion in damages for spreading conspiracy theories about the 2012 shooting that killed 20 children and six adult staffers.

Elon Musk allowed Jones back on X (Twitter) last year after the platform “permanently” banned him in 2018 under its previous ownership.

As America’s chief satire publication (at least of those doing so consciously), The Onion’s announcement of the purchase stayed on brand. Its tone, hinting at what’s to come, resembled The Colbert Report on steroids (or maybe Jones’ “Survival Shield X-2” pills).

“Founded in 1999 on the heels of the Satanic ‘panic’ and growing steadily ever since, InfoWars has distinguished itself as an invaluable tool for brainwashing and controlling the masses,” The Onion wrote in a truth-meets-fiction announcement. “With a shrewd mix of delusional paranoia and dubious anti-aging nutrition hacks, they strive to make life both scarier and longer for everyone, a commendable goal. They are a true unicorn, capable of simultaneously inspiring public support for billionaires and stoking outrage at an inept federal state that can assassinate JFK but can’t even put a man on the Moon.”

The Onion plans to rebrand Infowars as a parody of itself (more than it already was), poking fun at “weird internet personalities” like Jones, according to The New York Times. Ben Collins, the CEO of The Onion’s parent company, Global Tetrahedron, hasn’t said how much it paid to transform Infowars’ destructive self-parody into constructive satire. (Collins reported extensively on Infowars when covering misinformation at NBC News.) He plans to launch the rebooted site in January.