Monday evening, UW alumni Joe Garden and Carol Kolb of The Onion came to speak at the Distinguished Lecture Series in what was titled "An Evening with The Onion."
I'm not sure what I was expecting to happen, but it did not disappoint. Garden and Kolb proceeded to give a presentation worthy of Onion fame. They began with the history of the paper, which they claimed was established in 1783 by T. Herman Zweibel, a Prussian immigrant and "tuber farmer" who established The Mercantile Onion.
In reality, The Onion was created in 1988 in Madison and was ultimately sold for about $2,000. The paper, which they claim is "Number One in News" (but "I'm not number one in presentations" quipped Garden when he had trouble advancing the slides) perfects satire in a number of different categories.
The paper brand has since grown, including the Onion News Network as well. Garden and Kolb claimed the paper is a "perfect six" on the scale of journalistic integrity by the United States Department of Integrity. We know it's true because "charts never lie," said Garden.
I sat in the audience behind Garden's mom who, in the middle of the presentation, handed him a water bottle full of tap water from her kitchen.
The presentation consisted mostly of a Powerpoint of headlines from The Onion past, including the Titanic, World War II, and presidential elections. Garden and Kolb went through all of the departments at the paper and showed examples of satire within those categories - science and technology, national, politics, reader reaction, sports, opinion, local, entertainment, education, economy, and photo journalism.
The duo discussed the social media presence of the satirical paper including my personal favorite: #500footBinLaden - a series of images of a Poseiden-esque Bin Laden who towered over cities and crushed them.
The best part of the presentation was that others have mistaken Onion stories as true and reprinted them. A Chinese newspaper, they said, reprinted one of the stories that The Onion published. Ultimately, they had to print a retraction stating that United States newspapers "print lies to make money," according to Garden.
Given how amusing the talk was, I was very disappointed by the audience questions asked. Most of it was comments saying how much they loved The Onion. Some of the questions seemed as though they knew nothing about the paper at all, or did not listen to the presentation. One thing I did learn is that the paper is only free in Madison, which makes me appreciate it all the more.
The Onion, which gained much fame after publishing "Our Dumb Century," will have an app coming out soon, said Garden. (However, upon searching "the onion" on my iPhone, it seems as if they already have an app. Maybe it is going to be improved.)
Although the lecture wasn't really what I expected, we did have a lot of laughs. I would highly recommend that you check out The Onion if you haven't already.
In closing, I will leave you with these wise words between Garden and Kolb, to put this lecture back into the context of our world today.
"Without The Onion, the fabric of democracy would crumble."
"Who knows where we'd be?"
"Probably dead."
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