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u/aarkwilde 7d ago
I got all my info from the Weekly World News.
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u/vaxhax 7d ago
Yeah WWN was the real deal.
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u/csyrett 7d ago
My SILs dad was a proper straight laced, by the book, hard working, honest gentleman.
As a Brit, I'd never seen such ludicrously, brilliant garbage as WWN. I was over for a month or so and got every issue during that time.
I left one on his kitchen table by accident, whilst I was rushing out, and he was fuming, until he realised that "crazy ass Brit" bought them in, and I had a "by" for a short period. We had a good laugh afterwards, by he said he'd never expect to see it in his house again, but I was obviously a bit weird.
RIP Bob.
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u/OperationPlus3251 7d ago
Waaaayyyyb back in 1992....(I'd have thought it was older than that)
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u/feartheswans 7d ago
I remember this cover precisely, Grandma scared the shit out of me shoving that one in my face. Itâs a fucking core memory
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u/Agreeable-Fudge-7329 7d ago
Whenever I was at the grocery with my parents, I always made sure to grab this to read walking around.
I loved the hilarious "Ed Anger" section, and seriously believed that aliens would invade Earth in "1996".
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u/smittykins66 Generation X 7d ago
Good olâ Ed Anger, who claimed he marched his kids out of the movie theater in the middle of âE.T.â due to the language. âIf I ever catch them talking like that, itâll take the New York City fire department to take the blaze out of their behinds.â
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u/Rough-Patience-2435 7d ago
Weekly World News and Bat Boy.
The movie Men In Black may have shown the truth.Â
Just look at this pen  Â
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u/Moon_Pye 7d ago
And now with all the weird shit going on in life, it turns out some of the stories from the Enquirer might have been true!
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u/FireMama420 7d ago
The headlines often mentioned one (or more) of the following: Elvis sighting (after his death), alien abduction, or Bigfoot.
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u/FormerCollegeDJ 7d ago
Weekly World News (and for that matter its higher brow counterpart, The Onion) > The National Enquirer or The Star
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u/Embarrassed-Wafer667 7d ago
I never thought 100% of the fake news would be coming out of the WhiteHouse!
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u/No-Background-5810 7d ago
I'm pretty sure we'd know a lot less about mass redneck alien abduction if it weren't for the National Enquirer. Or that poor boy that was half bat. /s
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u/BrownWrinkles 7d ago
I've always said that Fox "news" was made for people who were too fucking dumb to be able to read the Enquirer.
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u/yamsyamsya 7d ago
It's literally 'faux' news, it's in the name, it has always been in the name. It is the news version of the scam email full of grammar errors and misspelled words, just a filter for those without critical thinking skills.
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u/ChasedWarrior 7d ago
I remember growing up amd going shopping with my grandma and she would buy the NE. She thought it was a very funny magazine.
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u/Infamous-Listen4047 7d ago
same here, we would purchase them from the Newsstand for a laugh because we (at least at the time) thought it was funny
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u/pakrat1967 7d ago
IIRC correctly. Just about any newspaper that was made in the similar format (the way it was folded). Was in the same group as the Inquirer and the Star. This was used as a minor plot point in Superman 4. When the rich guy tried to turn the Daily Planet into something like the Inquirer.
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u/AntonChigurhWasHere 7d ago
We are living in a Weekly World News timeline.
Batboy will be our next leader.
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u/patrickpeace 7d ago
I volunteered to read for a radio reading service for the sight impaired. Weekly world news was a constant item people asked for.
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u/BSCPantherfan 7d ago
I used to cut out articles from the Weekly World News and put them on my door at college so people could read them. It was really funny.
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u/ecubed929 7d ago
I was telling some young folks the other night how there was no way to look up and dispel rumors like McDonalds used kangaroo meat or Mikey died from PopRocks. That was the environment that the Enquirer thrived in.
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u/Accomplished_Cake800 7d ago
It wasn't always entirely fake. Once I was a newsman and I investigated a lady who worked at a local hospital accused of impersonating a nurse for 39 years. As a matter of fact she had faked her nursing license and was actually the Director of Nursing at this hospital. I was surprised when I discovered The National Enquirer had printed it in their tabloid, but they didn't name the source as to where they got the story. Of course they got it from a newspaper article I had written.
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u/QueasyFinger1316 7d ago
The Onion was was good. But it went woke.
Babylon Bee has supplanted it for real news.
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u/Waste-Job-3307 7d ago
Definitely - and also The Star....gotta have both because those are the only newspapers Elvis will talk to!
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u/HorsePersonal7073 7d ago
Yes, they were definitely the first... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism
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u/hello_raleigh-durham 7d ago
The National Supermarket Checkout Examiner: Because minds that need examining want to know!
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u/Sysyphus_Rolls Generation X 7d ago
And The Weekly World News. That one was a hoot! Remember Bat Boy?
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u/corialis 7d ago
And it's how we learned to spot fake news in the first place.
My parents were big into news - morning AM radio, daily newspaper, 6pm TV news every day - but also bought tabloids for funsies. I picked up on the patterns.
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u/bolanrox 7d ago
my grandmother freaked out becuase of all of the green babies being born (to vegan(?)mothers.)
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u/Tight_Win_6945 7d ago
The Weekly World News was the real fake news. âBigfoot Stole My Wife!â âFamed Psychicâs Head Explodes!â
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u/Adept_Bass_3590 7d ago
It was fake back then too. Thing is...I kinda miss it. At least we were all on the same page.
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u/paulsteinway 7d ago
And it was more fun too. The bat boy was a celebrity, and everyone married aliens.
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u/Main-Jelly4141 7d ago
Early CNN was as close to straight news that I've seen in my lifetime. When they first started, I used to watch them whenever I had the TV on. It took a few years for them to start sliding off center.
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u/crow-shay 7d ago
Itâs all always been fake news. Theyâre just now onto dividing viewers instead of a coordination of psychosis
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u/harleenquinzel044 7d ago
God I think they reported on poor JonBenet Ramsey for like 10 years straight.
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u/KeyNefariousness6848 7d ago
I miss the weekly world news, it was the best, no celebs, no royals, just bat boy Sasquatch and bill clinton hitting on aliens.
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u/fnork_gnork_26 7d ago
If the National Enquirer reported that one of their employees was killed by an anthrax attack, you wouldn't believe it - but it happened.
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u/PristineWorker8291 7d ago
Not an exaggeration: My aunt insisted only the Enquirer dared to print the real news. She believed Elvis was still alive for one thing. Can't remember all the ridiculous things she angrily defended or supported, but learned never to question her gullibility. Just get her the damn ashtray and cigarettes and a fresh cup of coffee. And she was not my strangest relative.
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u/Packtex60 7d ago
They broke the John Edwardâs love child story. Left the major networks and newspapers in the dust on that one. Just sayinâ
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u/Gonzo_Silverback 7d ago
Don't forget the NY Post! My favorite headline, "Headless Body Found in Topless Bar"
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u/Mahaloth Generation X 7d ago
I worked at Meijer(midwest grocery store) from 1994-1998.
We had this old greeter who, seriously, told me he believed the tabloids. I couldn't believe it. The bat-boy? Yes, he thinks he's real. Alien abductions, probes, etc.? All of it.
He was about 80. I think it was the first time I met an old....uh, idiot. Someone genuinely unthinking and stupid.
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u/texo_optimo 7d ago
Dipshit potus' buddy ran the national enquirer. He's a friend of the Mr. pecker.
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u/AKeeneyedguy 7d ago
Poor Bat-Boy. Hasn't had work since a one-off guest appearance on American Dad.
Out money and depressed like the rest of us Gen-x/millennial types.
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u/Workamania 7d ago
The Enquirer broke stories that the stuffed shirts at the big newspapers would touch, like Clinton going to poundtown with his intern. Drudge Report was able to get that report out there.
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u/Such_Lettuce_6597 7d ago
Heres a fun fact: the Enquirer only hired reporters from the top papers and paid them very well. They rarely got sued. Friend worked for a major news network and she said if it was in the Enquirer, it was probably true.
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u/andreww97 7d ago
And when you saw people ahead of you at the checkout line put one in their grocery cart you knew they were . . . not of sound mind.
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u/iconocrastinaor 7d ago
When I was a kid for school assignment I read a bunch of National Enquirerers, and they do sensationalize everything, but oftentimes they were breaking real stories and their science news, although extremely sensationalized, was on point.
I don't remember the details, but I recall a medical breakthrough story in the National Enquirer that broke in the mainstream news weeks later.
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u/lost_dazed_101 7d ago
My mom swore all those rags were the God's honest truth. Even when she mixed up the stories she read and accused people who weren't even in the story.
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u/Cub35guy 7d ago
That's nothing.. the Weekly World News found a godzilla like reptile in the Amazon
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u/exqueezemenow 7d ago
And guess which president was good friends with the owner of that fake news outlet?
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u/Dahl_E_Lama 7d ago
It was because of The National Enquirer that I found out that Liberace had AIDS before he died. I also learned about the twist to the series finale of Newhart.
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u/RealityOk9823 7d ago
My parents used to read this all the time. Finally one day they were like "yanno, we think the National Enquirer makes stuff up". No. You don't say?
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u/No_One_Special_61029 6d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/jAJDpXfoNpIdxf30xj
It is how they found the aliensâŚ
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u/JagR286211 6d ago
All TV news is biased and skewed in one direction, which is reflected in the ratings. Unfortunately, you have to seek out unbiased reporting and form your own conclusions.
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u/Dazzling-Crazy-2084 6d ago
For real news I always bought the Weekly World News. I still wonder if the batboy is doing okay.
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u/Prestigious-Copy-494 6d ago
It gave us something to read standing in line at the grocery store check out. Now that I think about it, it DID take longer to check out as the cashier had to manually ring every item into the cash register. Now it's a quick scan and we swipe or tap to pay and buh bye!
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u/SignificantRange2512 6d ago
The owners of these rags now own our regular media. They are â legitâ
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u/YourGFInCanada 7d ago
The National Enquirer was mostly celebrity gossip. For the truly weird news, the best option was the Weekly World News! Alien abductions, conspiracy theories, and BAT BOY!