1w ago

Reminder: In addition to not being The Onion, this isn't a politics community

Look, I get it. The gargantuan shit-show that is U.S. politics and the American descent into fascism is on everyone's minds. It's certainly on mine.

But the point of this community is to highlight weird news stories that make you go, "By golly, I thought I was reading a headline from The Onion. You know, America's finest news source." A lot of stories being posted lately don't even remotely fit that.

That doesn't mean political stories aren't allowed here, but they must have headlines that would make people pause and wonder if it's a story from The Onion. Straight up regular, non Onion-y headlines don't fit.

29 comments

It's not even valuable politics posts.
Every other one is an annoying 'look at the stupid thing Trump said, did or wore'.

Geez you’re not kidding. All the recent posts are politics with regular sounding headlines. I’m gonna start downvoting headlines that don’t fit.
- I'll report them all
- They can also just be removed, surely
  
  Yes, but if you report them, I find them faster.

I have to say, there have been a few political stories where I've genuinely wondered.
But you're right, it's mostly whingeing.
- To be fair some of said stories genuinely could have been onion articles... In what sane world would we deport a 4 year old resident with cancer? How is that an actual headline? The times this year I've had to double check is astonishing.

Fair point. These three aren't great.
Since when was "fighter jet falls off aircraft carrier" satirical? This stuff does happen occasionally. It's just an accident.
Most stuff on here belongs on aboringdystopia
- The Alex Jones one actually gave me a good "That's pretty Onion-y" hit.
  
  Funnily enough that was the one in the list I least reacted to. It's all subjective I'd imagine: It's all nonsense, without question... but they all still technically fit the bill.
- The Alex Jones one is definitely something you could see in the onion.
- I mean the first two I'd give a pass.
  It's like "Yeah that bad thing is good, actually" - which is pretty standard fare for an onion article. Not exciting by any stretch but it technically qualifies.
  ...And the plane is just funny. Not as a taxpayer, per se - but objectively would get someone to do a double take.
- The reason I posted the middle one is because it sounded a lot like a Onion title. It is crazy to me that a jet can just "fall off" something. Doesn't weight a few tons?
  
  Tens of tons for a modern fighter, and I think the f-18 is a bigger jet, too.
  But, if you've ever seen how much a ship leans over in a hard turn, you can see it happening.
  
  Have you seen aircraft carriers? I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often.

Thanks, the current government did some weird stuff that might have been an onion-like piece in another administration, and I have upvoted quite some of those surprising events in the beginning, but most recent posts are just 'something that happened in America that doesn't usually happen in a functional democracy' and I think it has become too much to be honest.

I found that my communities stayed on track better when I made robust rules and offered alternatives where content would be a better fit.
!dullsters@dullsters.net and !dull_mens_club@lemmy.world

good on you, minding the community

Funny, and I just noticed in my YouTube feed: "Satire Isn't Dead, It's Ineffective"
I wonder why.
- I blame '/s'

People just have a very poor sense of organization or proper placement. I feel a lot of the political doom and gloom posts are from those who feel like not "enough" is talked about something, when it apparently already is, so they throw it here.
But for a while now, yeah it's tiresome to try and turn every single thing into another political box.
- They may also feel it's not talked enough in general, and put it here on Lemmy, where every second post is about that.
- That's social media in a but shell. It explains why you see political on seemly random communities like shower thoughts.

By the nature of this community it will be political. The key is not to use this community as a podium to announce your beliefs from. You can have politics without shouting into the void.
Could we better utilize the down vote system? Maybe make a rule that posts with a certain number of down votes to upvotes ratio will be locked.

Have you tried Kostman’s you know the “The Penis People?”
https://youtu.be/g7efwJwY4KE

29 comments