When The Onion moved their offices from New York City to Chicago to save some money earlier this year, a handful of writers, including former editor Joe Randazzo, chose to leave the satirical newspaper and stay in New York instead of uproot their lives and families to a new city. But Randazzo and company’s devilishly satirical voices won’t be silenced any longer; they’ve partnered with Adult Swim to bring us Thing X.

Thing X is a website that hosts videos and articles, but Thing X is also supposedly a company that offers “solutions” and “things” obsessed with colecting your “clicks.” Thing X is also a cultish way of life that sucks you up and spits you out when it’s done with you, as contributor Joe Garden lays out in his story “Goodbye, Individuality. Hello, Thing X!” You don’t have to dig that deep into Thing X before you discover a, shall we say, unsavoury element lurking beneath the corporation’s slick veneer. Mysterious blood and static seems to find its way into their videos. Their slogan is “Let’s Destroy the Future Together.” There’s even a protest movement – @StopThingX sponsored by The Family Foundation for Turbo Diarhhea Prevention and Education – trying to expose Thing X for what it is with with tweets like “EMERGENCY: no one from yesterday’s “muffin sale” has returned, if ANYONE has info, please come forward.”

It all adds up to a throroughly bizarre world created for our entertainment. At least I hope so because I really can’t afford to get Turbo Diahhrea again.

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Michael Kolberg is The Sprawl Editor at Toronto Standard. Follow him on Twitter for jokes @mikeykolberg

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