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Q. Pheevr
q_pheevr
01 April 2009 @ 15:46
Fishwrap d'avril  

It is an ancient and noble tradition, among certain newspapers, to mark the first day of April by sneaking a fanciful work of fiction into their otherwise reliable pages. One of my favourite examples of the genre is the Guardian's classic 1977 article on the island nation of San Seriffe (comprising the islands of Upper and Lower Caisse, and ruled by the dictatorial General Pica).

But what do you do if you're in the satire business, and such spoof articles are your regular stock in trade? Well, if you're The Onion, what you do is put together an April Fool's Day issue that consists entirely of sober, factual reporting about the real events of the day. It's quite impressive, really—not just as a brilliant meta-prank, but as actual journalism. If The Onion did this every day, we wouldn't need the New York Times.

 
 
Nuværende humør: impressed
 
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( 13 kommentarer — Post a new comment )
Vizcacha[info]chillyrodent on 1. April, 2009 20:11 (UTC)
WHAT.

Oh, you. You did a meta-spoof of your own.
(Svar) (Tråd) (Link)
Q. Pheevr[info]q_pheevr on 1. April, 2009 21:17 (UTC)

Actually, it was your latest post that gave me the idea.

love, play & inquiry[info]trochee on 1. April, 2009 21:02 (UTC)
... you got me.

I wanted this to be true.
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Q. Pheevr[info]q_pheevr on 1. April, 2009 21:21 (UTC)

Hee hee!

If The Onion did real news stories for a day, it would be a great April Fool's joke. If Fox News did real news stories for a day, it would be a sign of the Apocalypse.



Edited at 2009-04-01 21:21 (UTC)
Henry[info]tahnan on 2. April, 2009 02:57 (UTC)
Me too, me too.
Henry[info]tahnan on 2. April, 2009 03:06 (UTC)
...and I only just noticed the icon. Darnit.
O.K.[info]caprinus on 1. April, 2009 22:20 (UTC)
OK, I totally fell for it. BRILLIANT!
(Svar) (Tråd) (Link)
Q. Pheevr[info]q_pheevr on 3. April, 2009 01:18 (UTC)
Thanks!
thnidu: mazeoftwistylittleljentries[info]thnidu on 2. April, 2009 00:25 (UTC)
Touché!
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(Anonym) on 2. April, 2009 22:55 (UTC)
Skullturf Q. Beavispants
Did you happen to visit Wikipedia on April 1st, and read their news items for that day? At first glance, it appeared as though they had made up several amusing fictitious news items. But a closer examination revealed that they were in fact real news items, but just described in slightly misleading or creative language to make them seem stranger than they were.

For instance, one story said that following the recent economic turmoil, the Prime Minister of Ireland was seen naked in public. What they were actually referring to was an art exhibit where a painting included an artist's rendition of the prime minister nude.
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Q. Pheevr[info]q_pheevr on 3. April, 2009 01:18 (UTC)
Re: Skullturf Q. Beavispants

I didn't see that. It sounds like a clever way for a Web site dedicated to facts to fool people into thinking they're being fooled.

Flesh-eating Dragon[info]Flesh-eating Dragon [wordpress.com] on 3. April, 2009 11:38 (UTC)
I believed you (and why not? It was perfectly plausible) but I immediately noticed (from the browser status bar while hovering over the link, I didn't actually click on it) that your link doesn't go to an April 1st page, but simply to the Onion's main content page. I figured that was just a mistake on your part.

Yours is the only one to fool me, but arguably the best April Fool's article I saw this year was the one blogged by John Wilkins:
http://scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts/2009/03/new_work_on_lateral_transfer_s.php
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Q. Pheevr[info]q_pheevr on 3. April, 2009 17:17 (UTC)
I immediately noticed (from the browser status bar while hovering over the link, I didn't actually click on it) that your link doesn't go to an April 1st page, but simply to the Onion's main content page. I figured that was just a mistake on your part.

As far as I can tell, The Onion is updated continuously these days, and I couldn't find a way of linking to a specific day's edition. And this post was really meant to be read on the day itself. Still, I guess I could fake it by pretending to pass an argument....