ClickHole
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About
ClickHole is a parody website created by the satirical news site The Onion to mock viral content websites like UpWorthy and BuzzFeed.
History
Announcement
On April 29th, 2014, The Onion announced a plan to launch a satirical viral content site named “ClickHole”[1] during its presentation at the Digital Content Newfronts conference. Slated for launch in June, the website originally featured an infographic with a tongue-in-cheek "stepy-by-step guide to clicking" and a “Click Me!” button with a real-time countdown to the launch date.
Site Launch
ClickHole officially launched on June 12th, 2014 with a number of satirical BuzzFeed-style lists and celebrity gossip articles, including "16 Pictures of Beyonce Where She's Not Sinking in Quicksand" and "7 Pricks Who Defied the Odds and Didn't Go Into Finance." That day, Redditor RenaissanceGentleman submitted the site to the /r/InternetIsBeautiful[2] subreddit, where it received more than 6,700 upvotes and 340 comments in the first week.
PatriotHole
On May 17th, 2017, Clickhole rebranded as "PatriotHole," a site devoted to parodying hard-right media, in an article titled "Welcome To PatriotHole, The Only Viral Media Site Brave Enough To SCREAM About REAL Americans."[4] In the post, Clickhole describes Patriothole as "the internet’s last stand against the tyranny of the Leftist Media" vowed "to bravely follow the truth wherever we want it to go and share fringe bloggers who type the loudest AND the longest." Clickhole also adjusted its Twitter output to reflect the change. One popular post features a parody of Americans who demand foreigners speak English, gaining over 2,300 retweets (shown below).
On May 19th, Clickhole announced in another post[5] that they would drop the Patriothole gimmick as a rebrand but continue to post Patriothole content on the site. The launch of Patriothole was praised by media outlets including Wire,[6] Salon,[7] and AV Club.[8] One of the highlights of Patriothole is "Doug Baxter," a character made in parody of Alex Jones (example shown below).
ResistanceHole
On May 9th, 2018, Clickhole announced ResistanceHole, a new site devoted to parodying center-left liberals who style themselves as The Resistance against Donald Trump and engage in jokes like Drumpf and saying the president is is gay with Putin. Their first article is titled "Mr. Drumpf, Your Newest Nightmare Is A Website Called ResistanceHole."[9] The site launched with several articles previously written in its backlog, including one titled "Leading The Resistance: eBaum’s World Is Offering Exclusive Access To An Unreleased ‘Salad Fingers’ Episode For Anyone Who Brings Them The Scalp Of A Nazi"[10] and "Absolutely Perfect: The San Diego Zoo Just Totally Stuck It To Donald Trump By Putting An Orange Wig On A Giraffe And Blowing It Up With Dynamite."[11]
Online, ResistanceHole was met with enthusiasm by many. User @charles_kinbote tweeted their support of the site in a tweet that gained over 140 retweets and 1,000 likes (shown below, left). User and writer @GMPaiella tweeted "inject this directly into my bloodstream (shown below, right).
However, some Twitter users, particularly on Weird Twitter felt that the site was stealing jokes they had been making for years. Twitter user Jesse Farrar said the gag of the site was done by friends of his on the site before (shown below, left). User @juchemane called those defending The Onion for being "derivative" hypocritical (shown below, right).
Features
The site contains separate feeds for articles, videos, quizzes, blog posts and features, with a front page highlighting the most recent additions in each section. The quizzes typically mimic the format of those found on BuzzFeed (shown below, left), while videos are often presented to mock the social justice-oriented media featured on UpWorthy (shown below, right). Clickhole also has its own revenue stream through advertising on the site.
Traffic
Within one week of launch, ClickHole held a global rank of 39,350 and a United States rank of 4,180 on the traffic analytics site Alexa.[3]
Search Interest
External References
[2] Reddit – ClickHole – The Onions Parody of BuzzFeed-esque clickbait sites
[4] Clickhole (via Wayback Machine) – Patriothole Launch Post
[5] Clickhole (via Wayback Machine) – ClickHole And PatriotHole Are Teaming Up To Profit Off A Fracturing America
[6] Wire – Meet PatriotHole, the Onion’s New Right-Wing-Skewering Mockery Machine
[7] Salon – The Onion debuts “Patriothole,” your new go-to for anti-Breitbart LOLs
[8] AV Club – ClickHole has been replaced by PatriotHole
[9] Resistancehole – Mr. Drumpf, Your Newest Nightmare Is A Website Called ResistanceHole
[10] Resistancehole – Leading The Resistance: eBaum’s World Is Offering Exclusive Access To An Unreleased ‘Salad Fingers’ Episode For Anyone Who Brings Them The Scalp Of A Nazi
[11] Resistancehole – Absolutely Perfect: The San Diego Zoo Just Totally Stuck It To Donald Trump By Putting An Orange Wig On A Giraffe And Blowing It Up With Dynamite
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