“Funny Because it’s True” author Christine Wenc had a book signing and conversation with Milwaukee Record founder, and A.V. Club alum, Matt Wild hosted by Boswell Books Thursday night.
The event opened with an overview of upcoming events at Boswell, before Wild and Wenc took the stage. The conversation roughly went over the history of the Onion, highlighting the writing process of the book and giving humorous anecdotes.
One such anecdote was the story of Wenc’s first and only front page story from her brief tenure at The Onion, “Our Society in the Grip of Penis Fear.” The story has gone on to become a legendary story in The Onion’s cannon, something Wenc was totally unaware of before starting the project.
Wild posited that it was the counterculture of the late 80s, mixed with a midwestern sensibility and humor that became the lighting in a bottle for The Onion. Wenc agreed, saying that the early Onion was “almost zine-y.”
“There were a lot of naked men in the early issues,” Wenc said, pointing out the underground humor of the publication
Wenc sited the first major turning point as the article “Dead Guy Found” from The Onion’s first year. She argued that this was the first real Onion article, where they take the AP style and twist it into a satire of the news.
The second major turning point according to Wenc was establishing a website in 1996. This took the intensely local publication that had been publishing in Madison, Wis for eight years, and exposed it to a global audience. Wild and Wenc agreed that the time honing their craft was a key factor in The Onion’s explosion in popularity on the Internet. Wenc also pointed out that there were very few, if any other websites dedicated to humor when The Onion went online.
The third major turning point they brought up was 9/11. Weeks before the terror attack, many of The Onion’s editorial staff moved from Madison, Wis to New York. Wenc described a deep anxiety among The Onion staff preceding their legendary 9/11 issue that was brought on by them being recent transplants.
The final turning point discussed was The Onion’s recent acquisition by the satirical media Global Tetrahedron in 2024. Wenc said that there was a discontent among Onion staffers prior to this 2024 buyout that were upset at The Onion’s further transformation into a “Content Mill” as she put it.
“The transition from a product into an investment was a subtle but major transition,” Wenc said.
Wenc pointed out the difference in culture between a company whose purpose was to sell a satirical newspaper, and a company whose purpose was to add value to an investment portfolio. Wenc stated that she hopes the new ownership will help refocus the company on their core values.
Wild ended their talk with a somewhat somber discussion of the modern state of the news media. In the spotlight was “Fake News,” one of Wenc’s inspirations for writing the book back in 2017. Wenc stressed the differences between fake news and a product like The Onion, siting the goal of The Onion as making people laugh, versus the goal of fake news being to make people afraid.
After the conversation, Wenc took questions from the crowd before going to the book signing. Many members of the crowd gave their favorite Onion headlines such as “Colorado Judge Imposes Ban on Same-Sex Friendships” from 1996 and “Flying Squirrel Loves It Every Time” from 2011. Wenc added her favorite headline, “Archaeological Dig Uncovers Ancient Race of Skeleton People.” Other topics from the audience included AI, other Madison, Wis area papers, and times The Onion was “truer” than traditional news media.