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Outbyte Driver Updater FREEFix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Outbyte PC Repair FREEClear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →How do you make a headline sound like straight news while giving it an absurd or uncomfortable premise? Tim Keck, co-founder of The Onion, described a five-part formula at the Seattle Interactive Conference in 2013. The steps, originally developed by founding editor Scott Dikkers according to Keck’s account, offer practical ways to find a satirical premise and frame it in a matter-of-fact voice. They describe one reported approach—not a comprehensive or current official style guide.
What holds the five techniques together?
The central contrast is between a familiar journalistic form and a premise that is unexpected, exaggerated, or unusually candid. Keck’s examples use recognisable news conventions—headlines, public figures, and report-like phrasing—to deliver a turn that ordinary straight coverage would not make. A useful starting question is: what does the news voice normally leave unsaid, or what ordinary perspective would change the scale of this event?
Keck presented the five moves below as techniques associated with The Onion’s comic voice. They are options to adapt, not mandatory ingredients for every satirical piece.
1. Put the unspoken thought into a straight-news voice
Keck called this including “the elephant”: identify a thought many people recognise but would not expect to see stated in a conventional news article, then report it as if it belonged there. The matter-of-fact delivery creates the joke by treating a socially awkward or absurd observation as ordinary news.
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GeekWire’s examples included “New President Feels Nation’s Pain, Breasts” and “Amputee Children of Cambodia Award Peace Prize to Henry Kissinger.” In drafting, separate the premise from its delivery: first find the unexpected observation, then present it without adding a wink that explains the joke.
2. Use religious subject matter as a source of contrast
Keck described religion as material for The Onion’s early approach, pointing to the contrast between newspaper logic and what he regarded as religion’s apparent absurdity. His explanation was: “The logic of a newspaper article versus how crazy religion is … that free zone makes you laugh,” as GeekWire reported.
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The examples in the report include “God Answers Prayers of Paralyze Little Boy” and “Chris Converts To Islam.” This is Keck’s account of one publication’s satirical territory, not a neutral judgment about religious belief or a rule that religious subjects must be used. A writer using this approach should be clear about the target of the joke—such as institutional language, public claims, or a character’s assumptions—rather than treating believers as a punchline by default.
3. Let a character say the thought they would normally hide
Keck’s “honest character” technique begins with a person’s private or socially unacceptable admission. Give the character a voice consistent with who they are, then let them state the thought plainly. The humor comes from the mismatch between what people usually say in public and what this character says without restraint.
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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors“Nobody speaks honestly,” Keck said. He added, “If you say exactly what the person is thinking, write it in character and force them to write it completely honestly, it becomes funny,” according to GeekWire. The report’s examples include “You Know, I Used To Be Kind Of Cool Once,” attributed there to “Sting,” and “Does This Cock Ring Make Me Look Fat?” The technique works best when the blunt admission reveals character rather than sounding like a generic provocation.
4. Switch the scale: make the huge personal or the small momentous
Change the frame of reference. A major event can be described as an ordinary person might experience it; a minor everyday incident can be inflated until it sounds consequential. Keck put it this way: “Write about a big event as if you were a regular person.” He estimated that this approach made up “like a third of The Onion articles”—his informal estimate, not a measured statistic.
GeekWire also reports Keck’s suggestion to take a familiar subject, put it into AP-style news language, and let that treatment make it funny. Its examples include “Holy S***, Man Walks On F****** Moon” and “Sales Manager Gets A Little Crazy At Office Party.” To use the switch, choose the point of view first: whose ordinary concerns are being applied to a major event, or what makes a routine incident seem disproportionately important?
5. Use meanness deliberately, not as a substitute for a premise
Keck described meanness as an energy source for The Onion and said pseudonyms gave writers freedom to be harsh. “This is something writers love,” he said; “Being incredibly mean is that thing,” GeekWire reported. The article’s example is “U.S. Troops Pull Out Of Vietnamese Peasant Girl.”
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This describes a particular publication’s comic voice, not a universal writing rule. Harshness can sharpen a joke when it exposes power, hypocrisy, or a cruel assumption; aimed carelessly at vulnerable people, it can become gratuitous harm instead of satire. The source does not set out a broader ethics framework, so writers should make their own target and likely impact part of the drafting decision.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to turn the framework into a draft
- Choose the target. Decide what attitude, convention, institution, or public assumption the piece is meant to expose.
- Find the comic move. Ask whether the premise relies on an unspoken thought, an unusually candid character, a scale reversal, religious subject matter, or deliberate harshness. The categories can guide a draft without all appearing in one piece.
- Set the point of view. For a scale reversal, identify the ordinary person or inflated incident that will anchor the framing. For a character piece, establish whose voice carries the admission.
- Write the premise in a report-like form. Use clear, restrained news language so the contrast with the premise can do the work.
- Check the target and the tone. Ask whether the joke reveals something beyond shock value and whether its harshness falls on the intended target.
Keck also joked about applying the techniques outside satire: “Take these techniques for Linkedin and you will super juice it,” he said. The line is a punchline, not evidence that the formula is a general-purpose writing system.
What this guide does—and does not—establish
Taylor Soper’s GeekWire account of Keck’s 2013 conference talk attributes the five-step formula to The Onion’s founding editor, Scott Dikkers, and reports Keck’s explanation and examples. It does not establish that the framework is required for successful satire, that every Onion article follows it, or that it remains the publication’s current official guidance. Keck co-founded The Onion; GeekWire reports that the founders sold it one year after starting it in 1988, and that Keck later founded Seattle weekly The Stranger.
For background rather than a step-by-step version of this formula, readers can explore Christine Wenc’s Funny Because It’s True: How The Onion Created Modern American News Satire from [Running Press]. Scott Dikkers’s How to Write Funnier is described in the Google Books catalog as a book about writing funny stories and comedy: Google Books.
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