The Onion is one of the most comprehensive news parody websites (or, to be more accurate, news parody networks) on the Internet today. However, it is not the only one, as “fake news” outlets (including websites) have become rather popular and widespread since the early 21st century. Each of them has different viewpoints, topics of satire, comedic features, or some combination of the three. In that light, here are four popular sites like The Onion.
1. The Daily Currant
One of the most popular competitors to The Onion, The Daily Currant is a news satire website focusing on politics, technology, and popular culture. Like The Onion, it is notable for having had several of its articles mistaken as factual news sources. These have included George W. Bush accidentally voting for Barack Obama in the 2012 American presidential election, famed economist Paul Krugman filing for bankruptcy, and NASA’s Curiosity land rover having found evidence of the Ten Commandments on Mars.
2. The Spoof
While it’s not as official-looking as The Onion or The Daily Currant, British-based comedy website The Spoof still has lots of funny parodic news stories. It also has other humorous bits of satire, such as fake celebrity diaries, picture captioning contests, user-submitted jokes, and more!
3. National Report
National Report claims that it is “America’s #1 independent news source”. However, similar to The Onion, all of its news stories are made up, even when they’re based on real people and/or events. Like The Onion and The Daily Currant, some of National Report’s fake news stories have been taken to be factual. These include former Arizona governor Jan Brewer making homosexual conversion therapy courses mandatory in the state’s elementary school curriculum, President Barack Obama spending his own money to keep a Muslim museum open during the American government shutdown in 2013, and a series of stories on Ebola outbreaks in the United States (including the quarantine of a town in Texas).
4. ChristWire.org
If you’re into religious humour, check out ChristWire. It’s a website with fake news articles that appear to attack homosexuality, atheism, recreational drug use, popular culture, other religions, and anything seen to be threatening America’s moral fabric. In reality, everything is made up, and the point is to satirize extremist viewpoints of conservative American Christians. As with many of its counterparts (including The Onion), some of ChristWire’s stories have been taken to be factual by official organizations and news outlets, including The Huffington Post, NBC, and DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education).
Have you visited any of these satirical fake news websites like The Onion? Did they tickle your funny bone, or just leave you scratching your head instead? Are there any other news spoof websites similar to The Onion that you think our readers would get a kick out of? Let us know in our comment section below, or on our social media channels.
