Area Man Feels Joy Online for First Time in Years
Wired · Manisha Krishnan ·
A day after the US midterm elections gave Democrats control of Congress, Onion CEO Ben Collins and comedian Patti Harrison spoke to WIRED about the salve of satire during politically fraught times.
“You guys remember ... how fucking hopeless we felt?” Onion CEO Ben Collins asked an audience at the WIRED World Fair Wednesday in Miami. At the time, he asked his partner, researcher and journalist Kat Abughazaleh, if she was up for walking “into a fucking burning building” by trying to take over Jones’ media empire. Her reply, according to Collins, was “Yeah. Nobody else is going to do this.”
Although The Onion is still in an ongoing legal battle over Infowars—it won the media network in a bankruptcy auction, but a federal judge in Texas struck the deal down—Collins is feeling more hopeful in light of the Democrats’ midterm wins.
“I want people to feel hope today because things changed last night,” he said. “We have an attorney general in Texas who might make a different decision.”