Congratulations to The Onion, proud new owners of InfoWars

Yesterday, the not-just-morally bankrupt conspiracy theorist Alex Jones tearfully auctioned off his podcasting equipment and his InfoWars domain names. Since being found liable for spreading lies about the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, Jones was in the hole for over $1 billion. But never fear, he said. “Good guys say they’re gonna buy it,” he said. “Who knows if they’re really good guys once they buy it,” he added after. 

Well, for once, Jones did offer something resembling a factually correct statement. This morning, the Associated Press reports that The Onion, the erstwhile sister site of The A.V. Club, has purchased InfoWars. Jones confirmed the news himself in a video posted to Twitter (X), suggesting that the satirical news site had worked with Connecticut Democrats and gesturing vaguely at some conspiratorial elements of the sale. Congratulations to The Onion; you genuinely did the funniest thing possible. 

According to The New York Times, Onion owner Ben Collins found out that their bid for InfoWards had won late Wednesday evening. “We thought this would be a hilarious joke,” he told The Times. “This is going to be our answer to this no-guardrails world where there are no gatekeepers and everything’s kind of insane.” The plan is to relaunch the site in January as a parody of its former self, mocking online personalities such as Jones. As for the “Connecticut Democrats” that Jones—who, again, is bankrupt because he spent the better part of a decade harassing the families of dead children—complained about, it seems that group is a collection of those very families, who gave their blessing for the sale of InfoWars to The Onion. The site has also partnered with Everytown for Gun Safety, an advocacy group formed in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting, to advertise on the soon-to-be-rebranded InfoWars. Collins explained to The Times, “They’re all human beings with senses of humor who want fun things to happen and want good things to take place in their lives.” May we all share the same sense of humor.