Headlines from the satirical site The Onion on Thursday: “New Dating Site Recommends People You Already Know But Think They’re Too Nice.” “Trump Boys Have Slap Fight Over Who Will Lead Foreign Policy Meetings.” “This is Why I Decided to Buy Infowars.”

Only one of them has the ring of truth. Sort of.

Bryce P. Tetraeder, the bylined author of the Infowars article, does not actually exist. And the Onion doesn’t plan to invest in business school scholarships for aspiring cult leaders.

But Onion intake It’s very real that Alex Jones’s conspiracy theory-saturated media empire has surfaced in a bankruptcy auction tied to lawsuits filed by families of Sandy Hook shooting victims — an attempt to combat lies with a comedic, who-would-have-thought development. It’s already been a bit of an incredible year. On Thursday, The Onion immediately shut down Infowars and plans to relaunch it in January as a parody of conspiracy theorists.

“Our goal in a few years is to have people think of Infowars as the funniest and silliest website there is,” said Ben Collins, CEO of the Onion. “It was the stupidest website that ever existed.”

This is the end of a long chapter, at least for now

The purchase, for an undisclosed sum, was supported by the Sandy Hook families, who were awarded nearly $1.5 billion. Lawsuits against Jones For his false claims that the 2012 shootings at a Connecticut elementary school were a hoax.

The new Infowars will be a satire of the theories put forward by Jones; These theories are so absurd that they might seem like satire if they didn’t cause harm in real life. The development ends one of the tentacles of a loose network of podcasters, TikTok influencers and others whose content has consistently provoked and outraged people, Collins said. He called Jones a minor character in the fear-based media universe.

“They’ve had a free pass up to this point, and we don’t think that’s fair,” he said.

He said he hopes to at least bring some entertainment to the Internet to make up for the Onion’s years of apocalyptic drift.

Dale Beran, who created this year’s Netflix documentary, said the new initiative has a leader who is perfectly suited to what it’s trying to do in Collins, who once reported misinformation for NBC News: “Anti-Social Network” about the subject.

Onion, Founded as a newspaper It went through several ownership changes in 1988 and was acquired earlier this year by a group that included Jeff Lawson, co-founder of the software company Twilio. Since then, “it feels like new life has been breathed into it,” Beran said.

It’s a well-done, satirical site about conspiracy theories, and those who use those theories are in a historic situation, as comedian Stephen Colbert experienced a decade or more ago when his Comedy Central show “The Colbert Report” mocked self-righteous conservative television talk show hosts. may encounter the moment. .

So what happens when some of Jones’ casual fans who haven’t been following news of the bankruptcy auction log on to Infowars in a few months to find the Onion’s new creation? “Probably not much,” Beran said, noting that it’s unlikely there’s much overlap between people who are influenced by conspiracy theories and those who want to make fun of them.

Conspiracy theories abound about the fate of conspiracy theorists

In fact, conspiracy theories about Onion’s acquisition of Infowars began popping up online just hours after it was announced.

“It is not possible for this sales point, which has not been relevant for years, to cover this purchase on its own. “Who was really behind this?” He posted on Zeee Media website X, which bills itself as “one of the most trusted, uncensored sources of information in Australia.”

Jones hastily released a video to his fans on Thursday. “This is a complete attack on freedom of expression,” he said. deep state It’s completely out of control.”

Shutting down a prominent website that traffics in misinformation has an impact. Beran said the business model of reaching people who want to be outraged is still valid. Another misinformation expert suggested Jones would quickly move on and his fans would follow suit.

“As long as there are people willing to watch, it will find new outlets,” said Yotam Ophir, director of the Media Effects, Misinformation and Extremism Lab at the University at Buffalo. “In fact, the Onion trolling and the lawsuits filed against him will make some of his most devoted fans even more convinced of his veracity and see him as a martyr for free speech.”

At the very least, the Onion purchase offered a moment of zen for liberals who have had a pretty rough week following Donald Trump’s election victory and the GOP’s victory in Congress.

“This is bad karma turning into good,” wrote Timothy W. Larson, who described himself as an “unabashed progressive” in X. “I love it.”

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Dave Collins of the Associated Press in Hartford, Connecticut, contributed to this report. David Bauder writes about the media for the AP. follow him http://x.com/dbauder.