Politics

Important Newspaper ‘The Washington Post’ Fell For A Clickhole Article And It’s Very Funny

Looks like we have a new American Idiot.

by Patrick Lenton  11 July 2018
Washington Post

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Here’s the thing — people in the UK are trying to get Green Day’s ‘American Idiot’ to the top of the charts in an effort to troll Donald Trump during his visit with Theresa May, which I guess is mildly funny? But what’s very funny is The Washington Post’s reporting on the subject.

Notably, for many hours, The Post’s coverage of the story included a very interesting source: ClickHole’s 2017 article ‘Enough Time Has Passed to Reveal George W. Bush Was the ‘American Idiot’ (By Billie Joe Armstrong)‘.

Clickhole is, of course, a parody site, and the article in question is a very funny joke. While The Washington Post has now updated the article to exclude the references, they both linked and quoted the satirical article multiple times as if it was real, which is hilarious. It’s always perfect when people believe that Clickhole is a serious news site.

For the casual reader, it could seem plausible that the lead singer of Green Day had written an essay deconstructing the incredibly obvious link between George Bush and ‘American Idiot’, as the article is written pretty straight. There’s no fourth-wall breaking absurdist gags to telegraph its comedy.

But also, it is pretty obviously satirical

“I like to think that the song, and the album as a whole, takes on new meaning with that final piece in place,” reads the Clickhole article. “When I sang, ‘Information age of hysteria / It’s calling out to idiot America,’ I wasn’t just calling out America in general—I was calling out President Bush’s America.”

The Washington Post added an amendment to the article, after removing the gaff.

“This story has been updated to remove material attributed to a satirical web publication, ClickHole, which should not have been treated seriously.”

They also provided this extremely chagrined tweet.

In response, The Onion (which owns Clickhole) has been roasting The Post.