The Onion: The Parody Of The Onion

Ever since the early twentieth century, Americans have been bombarded by advertisements and marketing strategies. In the year 1917, The Committee of Public Information was created, which spread propaganda and promotional posters throughout World War I, proving that the American public’s opinion could be easily manipulated. Today is a vastly different world, as mass capitalism and consumerism dominate public life. Companies continue to market their products aggressively, as advertisements and marketing campaigns have become commonplace. While humorous and entertaining, the Onion satirizes common marketing ploys and how products are advertised to consumers in order to make light of such a prevalent industry. In order to satirize the marketing industry, the Onion produced a parody of a stereotypical advertisement. While the work may appear to be a standard advertisement issued by a company, the language chosen and implied meaning give rise to parody. Marketing phrases are utilized to give the mock marketing ploy the feel of an actual advertisement, as phrases such as “stressed and sore-footed Americans everywhere are clamoring for the exciting new MagnaSoles shoe inserts,” yet the parody is revealed in the phrase, “no fewer than five forms of …show more content…
Generally, advertisements include a trustworthy, genuine tone to attract potential buyers. The Onion, however, reverses this idea, and employs words that discredits the product. Words that should instill credibility within a product ultimately do not, as the diction implemented includes “pseudoscience” (paragraph 1), “scientific-sounding literature” (paragraph 4), and “pain nuclei into pleasing comfortrons,” (paragraph 7). The words and phrases that a marketing firm would generally use to add credibility to a product are mocked by the Onion through obviously fake-sounding language, demonstrating the