This Is What The Onion Had To Say About Their “Free Triangles”/Military Funeral Photo

Editor’s Note:  Unlike many sites that thrive solely on “veteran outrage,” we like to present multiple sides of the same story so people can have a fuller picture and be more informed about the important issues of our day… and make no mistake, this is an important issue.  We figure the best way to find out why somebody did something is to just ask them about it.  Through our friends at Article 15 Clothing, our editors got in contact with The Onion’s public relations team for comment.  To their credit, they responded.  Below what The Onion’s CEO, Mike McAvoy, had to say, give it a read and let us, and them, know what you think.

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ClickHole is a website that makes fun of clickbait and internet culture, a culture that often treats people as memes and uses broad, heightened emotions to entice traffic. We frequently write jokes in the voice of an insane character who doesn’t understand the world. The intention of this joke is that the ClickHole character completely misunderstands what is happening in this very solemn photo and has reacted with the exact wrong emotion. The joke is intended to be purely at the expense of the ClickHole character and internet culture, and certainly not the military or military families. We sincerely regret the emotional distress caused to those who interpreted the joke in a way we never intended.

We also think it’s very important to note that the photo used is not from a real funeral—it is from a stock-photo website and features models, not a real family of a serviceperson.

– Mike McAvoy

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