People who believe The Onion is real

[redfarmer]

A friend of mine introduced me to a new tumblr devoted to collecting Facebook screenshots of people who posted articles from The Onion called Literally Unbelievable. Of course, it provides hours of entertainment, but it got me thinking about what this says regarding how we get our information on the internet.

Is this an example of confirmation bias in action, that we find information that fits our preconceived notions and, as a result, adopt it as supporting our position without actually checking the source itself? I'm sure this happened before the advent of the internet, but do you think the internet has made it worse? Is there another explanation I'm missing? I'm curious what everyone thinks.

I must give a disclaimer that I once posted a Huffington Post comedy article on Congress redefining the value of pi so, whatever this phenomenon is, I am not immune.

 

[Verde]

A friend of mine introduced me to a new tumblr devoted to collecting Facebook screenshots of people who posted articles from The Onion called Literally Unbelievable. Of course, it provides hours of entertainment, but it got me thinking about what this says regarding how we get our information on the internet.

Is this an example of confirmation bias in action, that we find information that fits our preconceived notions and, as a result, adopt it as supporting our position without actually checking the source itself? I'm sure this happened before the advent of the internet, but do you think the internet has made it worse? Is there another explanation I'm missing? I'm curious what everyone thinks.

I must give a disclaimer that I once posted a Huffington Post comedy article on Congress redefining the value of pi so, whatever this phenomenon is, I am not immune.

Thanks for that link. It has provided a good hour of amusement.
I haven't visited The Onion as much recently, but I had an anti-social habit a while back of forwarding articles from there to various acquaintances that had me on their e-mail copy lists. I would try and pick a subject that I thought would rattle their chains, and in many cases it had the desired effect. There would be a slew of rants back and forth, with nary a question about the source of the material.
As you said, so long as it fitted the preconceived notions of the reader, or supported a particular hobby-horse, it would be taken as true.
Whenever I pointed out that it was parody/satire, I would be shouted down, even though I originated the thread and made no secret of the source.

The result has been the dropping of me from most of the e-mail lists. This is not a bad thing, although it has removed a source of humor. Perhaps I should find my magnifying glass and look for an ant hill.

V.

 

[NoahFence]

You mean it's not?

 

[goodm0urning]

I've seen a lot of people get fooled for a moment by The Onion for just a moment before realizing their mistake, and I assumed this was just a collection of such incidents. But wow... some of these people are pretty thick.

Thick, like, "We changed the spelling to 'Led Zeppelin' to keep thick Americans from pronouncing it 'Leed Zeppelin." Not thick, like, "DAYUM, she's thick in all the right places."

I'll shut up now.

 

[timhau]

Ha. That reminds me of the day some goldbugs in a Finnish-language message board stumbled upon this piece.

 

[foxholeatheist]

Ha! Thank you~!~

 

[rjh01]

I wonder if that page is a satire?

 

[MoeFaux]

Ah, the good old days before the Onion was super big! Back in '98...'97, when I was a troublemaking high-schooler, I used to enjoy occasionally fooling people with their articles. I'll never forget laughing hysterically in my math teacher's computer lab at the all caps headline: "OWLS ARE ***HOLES!"

I was in the Onion once, still one of my favourite claims to fame.

 

[Bill Thompson]

I saw a real interview from someone from the Onion and they said that the Chinese printed one of their stories that said that Congress had approved a lavish club and gym for themselves as fact. They contacted the Chinese and told them it was a joke and it seemed that the Chinese could not grasp the concept of parody. That, itself, is funny.

 

[Alareth]

This post I made a few years back seems to have some relevance about why people take sites like the Onion seriously.

Online Literacy, Conspiracies and the Endangered Tree Octopus

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

A friend of mine introduced me to a new tumblr devoted to collecting Facebook screenshots of people who posted articles from The Onion called Literally Unbelievable.

For those who might critisize the appearant bias of The Onion for printing the Palin abortion story, they did a pretty good job of smoking out liberals who would literally believe anything about Palin regardless of how "out there" it is.

 

[rjh01]

I saw a real interview from someone from the Onion and they said that the Chinese printed one of their stories that said that Congress had approved a lavish club and gym for themselves as fact. They contacted the Chinese and told them it was a joke and it seemed that the Chinese could not grasp the concept of parody. That, itself, is funny.

No, it is just another culture. There are many things that do not translate well.

 

[Eddie Dane]

No, it is just another culture. There are many things that do not translate well.

Reminds me of the mayor of Tel Aviv appearing on TV during the first Gulf war to talk about the risk of SCUD missiles hitting the city.

'According to our information as SCUD missile will travel from Iraq to Tel Aviv in five minutes. And then it will need three hours to find a parking spot'.

It raised some eyebrows in the Arab world.

 

[Cayvmann]

For those who might critisize the appearant bias of The Onion for printing the Palin abortion story, they did a pretty good job of smoking out liberals who would literally believe anything about Palin regardless of how "out there" it is.

There is no doubt that there is ignorance on any side of any issue. The Palins certainly know about ignorance, personally... ( rimshot! )