It means that there's an expected setup, then a twist. Trump' sons engaged in bribery? Check. It's easy to believe. The subversion happens when we get to the method of payment. We expected unmarked bills or a fraudulent wire transfer, but we got children's snacks, which reframes the whole situation as if they're two kids in a trenchcoat.
If you remember Rudy Giuliani giving a speech at a landscaping company parking lot, you may remember hilarious news titles referencing the Four Seasons. They were particularly Onion-y, because we expected Rudy Giuliani to spew lies at a press conference, which often happens in hotel conference centers. The Four Seasons hotel would be a reasonable place for the whole thing to go down. He probably announced the location, then found out he couldn't book the hall. Making lies about the election in the Four Seasons Landscaping parking lot across from a sex toy store? Hilarious. It sounds like comedy, but it's reality.
Expectation: "Biden funds Israeli war efforts" The subversion is that the Onion title reads between the lines, ignoring normal journalistic nothing-speak to say the quiet part out loud. These each hint at a bit of actual truth, but rather than simply being outlandish (which is our current baseline), these Onion titles all add something to name it now ridiculous. A bribe in child snacks? The bribe is what's expected. The snacks are the unexpected, making the whole thing funny.
Biden doesn't generally say the quiet part out loud, so that's the joke. The specificity of the Florida law is what's funny, not the fact that they make backwards, misogynist laws. The briefcase is also too on the nose. We know they bribe people, but that headline is slapstick comedy.
It's a fine line, admittedly, but those headlines do read like jokes to me.
A lot of these should be onion-y, but are not because the bar is so low. Trump being hypocritical? That's to be expected. It can't be onion-y because it doesn't subvert expectations in any way.
It just got remastered in 4k (my pre-ordered UHD Blu-ray just arrived a couple days ago), so memes can be made in any quality from deep fried to "up close examination of Alec Baldwin's skincare routine".
The title just doesn't care.
GÖTTERFUNKEN
Worse than the monetary theft, he appears to have stolen the identity and likeness of Good Guy Greg.
You forgot the inflection. "Pre👆🏻SENting to the emergency room...."
I mean, it's not "funny haha" throughout, but it's great double-edged satire.
It did make me laugh out loud when the punchline showed up at the very end (the title of the short film in Comic Sans).
Health insurance is a scam. American healthcare is atrocious. Stochastic terrorism is never okay. Don't you dare claim that it is.
