The Onion’s new parody of Alex Jones’ Infowars starts with $100,000 to Sandy Hook families
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- The Onion is launching a parody of Alex Jones' Infowars Thursday on its own website, kicking off with $100,000 from merchandise sales sent to families of Sandy Hook shooting victims.
- Sandy Hook families have received nothing from Jones despite courts ordering him to pay more than $1.4 billion in defamation judgments in Connecticut and Texas after he falsely called the 2012 shooting a hoax that killed 20 first graders and six adults.
- The Onion CEO Ben Collins stepped in to bid when Infowars' assets went to auction, warning: "Don't give comedy writers a grudge for 18 months," and said his company is still in court trying to take full control of the brand.
- The parody site will spoof Jones' formula with merchandise like a "penis flattening device" and a fake "pro oxygen" supplement pill, plus extended debate on how many Bozo the Clowns exist, mixing satire with the original's shock-value outrage loop.
- Infowars drew 10 million visitors a month and generated more than $50 million a year at its peak before the defamation judgments forced Jones into bankruptcy, after which he moved his show to a different website and was left, per one attorney, "with an iPhone and a fancy microphone."
- Robbie Parker, whose daughter died at Sandy Hook, plans to read his book about fighting Jones inside the Austin, Texas studio Infowars once used — a space Collins expects The Onion to take over shortly.
- Attorney Chris Mattei, representing nine Sandy Hook families, said "Every dime Alex Jones makes from here until the end of eternity is going to be claimed by the families," adding the idea of turning Infowars "to some social good" is "even better" than simply shutting it down.
Why it matters: The Sandy Hook families have collected zero of the $1.4 billion Jones owes them, so $100,000 from parody merchandise is the first real money they've seen — and it arrives via the very brand that harassed them, now weaponized against Jones by a comedy outlet that may soon own his studio outright.
