The Onion started publishing in 1988, and was online by 1996.
Landover Baptist has been on the net since 1998. I stumbled on it as kid, back when the family computer was for playing Neopets.
There’s been an increase in satire websites for sure, largely driven by the popularity of the Onion, and it does cause problems. There are conservative outlets which 100% put out complete and utter bullshit under the guise of “satire,” knowing that their audience has the gullibility of a five year old, and that’ll end up on garbage Facebook pages as unironic.
It’s not “conspiracy” but more - the Onion is very popular, popular things get knock offs, and opportunists saw a way to inject lies into the public discourse, while claiming they’re “satire.” (Similar to how CinemaSins on YouTube uses the term, “we were wrong about a basic thing in the movie? psych! the jokes on you for taking it seriously!)
I really miss that brief time that the Babylon Bee was good.
skulblaka@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
I can assure you with absolute certainty that satire has been an established tradition for a very long time before 2008
krunklom@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Lies. Voltaire was a deep state psy op
oneser@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
But you provide no references, which mean none exist! My god, maybe this commenter is on to something and satire was invented in 2008 to turn us into sheeple!
(I love a good/shit conspiracy theory and stand equally behind op and this comment)