>Certain issues of The Onion newspaper are mysteriously missing from our 270-year archive, and you might be able to help us recover them.
TIL from mid-2011 to mid-2012 the print edition of The Onion was actually distributed here in Toronto (<a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/125698/the-onion-newspaper-coming-to-canada/" rel="nofollow">https://globalnews.ca/news/125698/the-onion-newspaper-coming...</a> ; <a href="https://nmc-mic.ca/2012/07/24/star-media-group-suspends-publication-of-the-onion/" rel="nofollow">https://nmc-mic.ca/2012/07/24/star-media-group-suspends-publ...</a>). Seems I missed out :(
On the night the Onion finally went out of print my friends and I went and took a few of the newspaper boxes they distributed them out of in Madison. One stayed at our friend's house, the other one we used as a distribution box for our own anonymous satirical newspaper we wrote for our high school.
Area Man has them.
I may actually have some of these. I picked up a bunch of issues in Madison in the early 90's and I'm pretty sure I still have them...somewhere.
I was excited that I may have been able to help, but I just have issues from volumes 36 and 37... Perhaps this is for the best, as it would have deeply fed my pack rat tendencies.
TIL The Onion goes back to at least 1988.<p>Anyway, I'm a big fan of what their new(ish) management has been doing, especially with infowars. I hope they can get the issues they're looking for.
It started at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. I was an undergrad there at the time and never missed an issue (but unfortunately didn't save them). A few random observations:<p>* It was a huge hit on campus almost right away, or at least once it found its footing and sensibility - the dry conventions of journalism applied to mundane events.<p>* The sensibility of The Onion was very midwestern, and specifically "college-town Midwestern slacker". I knew exactly the type of people they had in mind when writing about "Area Man". This article captures that well: <a href="https://www.midstory.org/the-onions-midwestern-homecoming/" rel="nofollow">https://www.midstory.org/the-onions-midwestern-homecoming/</a><p>* I remember thinking that lots of college towns must have a satirical newspaper as good as this. Then when it went national, realizing that it was really something special.
Did somebody steal these magazines or are they just being overly dramatic?
I'm guessing they lost their back issues due to neglect and sometimes tragedy. When people are first starting out they often don't think that in 30 years time they will want a physical copy of their joke periodical and warehouse space is always limited. When budgets get tight it is sometimes the storage bill that has to be cut.
They had a mood swing ahead of the 2008 election, and truly hilarious characters like Herbert Kornfeld were canceled.<p><a href="https://theonion.com/cash-room-bitch-be-havin-my-shortie-1819583694/" rel="nofollow">https://theonion.com/cash-room-bitch-be-havin-my-shortie-181...</a>
Could also just be a joke - never know with the Onion ;)
They could have just lost them too, doesn't need to be nefarious.
It was me. Just wait until they find out which of the 1920s issues I took.
Hard to tell if the onion is trying to be funny?
libraries sadly have to destroy old archives all the time<p>but it's not like a lost Doctor Who episode, it will show up eventually<p>meanwhile they can keep eerily predicting dystopia like the government televising executions for entertainment a year before it happens
Should have posted the direct link with more details about what they are looking for and how to help.<p>That's here: <a href="https://theonion.com/archivehunt/" rel="nofollow">https://theonion.com/archivehunt/</a>
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