The Onion is developing a documentary for America’s 250th anniversary, called Birth of a Nation, a project CEO Ben Collins says reflects the company’s growing focus beyond satire articles and headlines.
“For the 250th anniversary of America, we’re making a documentary called Birth of a Nation, which is great,” Collins said onstage at the Fast Company Most Innovative Companies Summit, in a conversation with Jill Bernstein.
The documentary is one of several projects underway at The Onion, following its acquisition by Collins and a group of investors in 2024.
Before buying the publication, Collins spent years at NBC News covering extremism and misinformation online.
“I was covering neo-Nazis and psychopaths, aka, like, the United States government, for NBC News,” Collins said. “It was a tiresome thing to do.”
Collins said he left NBC News shortly before Christmas in 2023, intending to write a book, before seeing an AdWeek report that The Onion was for sale.
“We can’t lose this,” he recalled thinking. “We’re losing everything. We can’t lose this.”
Within weeks, Collins had assembled investors, including Twilio founder Jeff Lawson, and acquired the publication.
Moving away from low-quality ad revenue
At the time of the acquisition, Collins said The Onion was generating about $1.5 million annually, much of it through low-quality advertising networks.
After the acquisition, the company instead focused on subscriptions, print products, and audience support.
According to Collins, The Onion now has around 80,000 paying subscribers, more than 3 million YouTube subscribers, and a digital audience of roughly 30 million people.
“We wanted to make a case to everybody else in the media that if you do actually double down on the stuff that your readers like and you don’t capitulate and try to browbeat and suck up to power, left and right . . . it’s better for you,” Collins said.
The Onion’s bid for InfoWars
The Onion has also drawn attention for its effort to purchase InfoWars, the political conspiracy platform founded by Alex Jones.
The bid came during Jones’s bankruptcy proceedings related to the Sandy Hook defamation judgments against him.
“So when it was up for bankruptcy nine days after the 2024 election, the two people to bid on it were Alex Jones’s proxy, probably his kid, and us,” Collins said.
The Onion won the auction, though Jones has continued appealing the process.
“We are stupid people who picked a fight with an awful man,” Collins joked. “But we’re almost there.”
Once the deal closes, Collins said The Onion plans to satirize conspiracy influencers and internet personalities across social media platforms.
“We’re going to start off going after all this stuff on your TikTok and Instagram account that you’re like, how is there not somebody making fun of this person?” Collins said. “We are going to make fun of that person.”
“Comedy has devolved into racist roasts”
Collins also criticized the current state of comedy, arguing that much of it has shifted away from more layered satire.
“Comedy has devolved into racist roasts and nothing else, and I’m just exhausted by it,” he said.
Part of The Onion’s strategy now is creating space for comedy writers and creators interested in different kinds of work, including projects involving comedian Tim Heidecker.
Collins also said The Onion does not use AI-generated editorial content.
“We also do not use AI, and you can tell,” Collins said. “The stank of AI is very profound right now, and it’s deeply unpopular.”
Collins said he sees The Onion as offering readers a sense of recognition during a difficult political and media environment.
“Success for us is really like, we want people to feel catharsis,” he said. “We want people to feel seen in this world, where the media has been totally captured by a bunch of people with some real weird perversions.”