Nothing, regardless of how obscure or unexpected, is safe from falling into the funhouse mirror of being Onion-ized. Today alone, topics ranging from stadium bathroom floors to Dr. Seuss to garbage were subjected to The Onion‘s absurdist spin. But some subjects — particularly some media companies — need a little extra attention from the parody journal. The perceivably spoofable media company du jour is VICE, in a just-announced web series that’ll take on, in particular, the notion of a brand of “cutting-edge” documentary and news content that pairs drug-saturated youth appeal with scenes of war/poverty/atrocity. The web series, which was shot in May and will be released on August 3, is quite perfectly titled EDGE. The teaser sets the tone, bragging:
With a team of more than 300 news warriors, EDGE pummels readers with immersive reporting that is uncaged, unaccountable, and totally fucked up.
As per the series’ Twitter account, they’re already looking for “instances of global horror worth [their] time”:
If you’re looking for an example:
While The Onion itself parodies traditional journals and its sister site, Clickhole (which they released in June 2014), mocks the moral/emotional/intellectual vacuum of clickbait sites, EDGE, according to The Onion‘s VP of content, looks to skewer VICE’s “distinct self-confidence.” He said:
The Onion team is highly competitive when it comes to other companies and publishers, so its only natural we would take a stab at VICE as a whole.
Watch the teaser: