50 Times People Fell For Fake Satirical Articles And Made Fools Of Themselves Online

Satire is usually meant to be funny. However, it often serves a greater purpose too, providing constructive social criticism, using wit to draw attention to both particular and wider issues in society.

In the digital age, The Onion is probably the most prevalent satirical publisher—it produces articles on international, national, and local news. Even though The Onion ceased publishing its print edition in 2013, it has survived online where the company has been operating since the spring of 1996.

Occasionally, the serious, straight-faced manner in which The Onion "reports" on non-existent events, happenings, and ideas has resulted in people mistakenly thinking the stories are real news.

In fact, this started happening so often, it even gave birth to a subreddit, collecting screenshots of these gullible folks' reactions. Continue scrolling and check out some of the top posts of r/AteTheOnion, which currently has over 509K members and has started featuring reactions to satire created outside of The Onion too.