The Onion Going Out of Business: “Reality is Stranger Than Fiction”

By An O. Nymous

The world is in shock this weekend as Mike McAvoy announced he is shutting down his satirical newspaper, The Onion.

“We’re running out of material,” he said in an interview. “Reality is stranger than fiction.”

The world breathes a heavy sigh of despair as The Onion has been their quarantine go-to so that they don’t go completely insane.

“I’ll have to resort to Zoom Meeting Bingo and online Solitaire again,” says Jane Doe, 65. She continues on to talk about her grandkids, but no one really cares about a couple of immature teenage boys so I won’t include those comments here.

Speaking of immature teenage boys, our next comment comes from John Smith. John Smith has been an avid reader of The Oniom ever since his dad read it to him as a bedtime story. John expresses sorrow at the untimely end to his favorite newspaper.

“It’s where I get my news. None of the other newspapers tell us the real story.”

But not everyone will miss the newspaper. Don Jackson, 38, lives in Akron, Ohio, in his mother’s basement.

“I, for one, am celebrating. Yeah. I’m super duper happy,” he says, wearing a bright red MAGA hat. “They just are a bunch of fake news. They are against our country. So I’m celebrating. Yeah.” He stares at me with a cigar hanging from his lip. “What are you still doing in my house?”

He refused further comment and chased me out of his house with an assault rifle.

What can I say? Journalism is a dangerous job.

McAvoy expressed how sorry he was in a heartfelt letter:

The Onion is Closing. Period. Oh crap, Siri! That’s not what I meant! Hey wait!! Don’t send! Cancel! Cancel!

It’s enough to make any person cry. Which I am not. I’m not crying. At all.

While most of us will mourn the loss of this iconic paper, McAvoy promises that he will reopen “eventually.”

“As long as we live in this strange world, I’m afraid I can’t accept any more satire stories. Reality is just too weird. But as soon as things go back to normal, we might reopen. Eventually. It just depends on what normal means. What is normal?”

What is normal? Profound advice from Mike McAvoy, advice we should all keep in mind as we spend the rest of our quarantine knitting and crying.