When The Onion ceased print publication last year, it didn’t signal the end of the satirical news publication. It just meant that The Onion was going after a new target: the viral, click bait culture that’s made BuzzFeed and Upworthy thrive.
Enter ClickHole: a new Onion website with content unabashedly meant to pander, mislead and ultimately go viral.
Because BuzzFeed tries to be funny, ClickHole has a tougher task than The Onion. It’s easier to parody the serious than the silly.
So far, ClickHole is best when it’s a funhouse-mirror reflection of click bait sites. For example:
“10 Hilarious Chairs That Think They’re People,” with a picture of an empty chair watching TV.
The Upworthy-style “You Won’t Believe How Cheap This Stock Video of a Woman Sitting on a Swing Was.”
A “Which ‘Mad Men’ Character Are You?” quiz that reminds clickers with each new question that they’re not getting Don Draper as an answer.
While ClickHole is already very funny, its mere existence confirms a sad fact about the state of journalism: Even satirical news has turned into BuzzFeed.
