1996 / Web post / Satirical news website
The Onion Goes Online
America’s Finest News Source gave its straight-faced absurdity a permanent web address.
The original is hosted off-site; this page provides context and a link to it.
What was this?
The site presented invented news in the visual language of a serious publication, then let each impossible premise do the work.
Why it spread
A shareable headline made the format easy to pass around before feeds standardized that behavior.
What happened
The site presented invented news in the visual language of a serious publication, then let each impossible premise do the work.
Where it came from
The Onion expanded its satirical newspaper voice to the web in 1996, bringing deadpan headlines into the link-and-bookmark era.
Why it mattered
The Onion helped make the fake-news article a legible native web-comedy form long before it became a generic content template.
How it spread
A shareable headline made the format easy to pass around before feeds standardized that behavior.
Keep going
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