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Talk:Joe Biden (The Onion)

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Good articleJoe Biden (The Onion) has been listed as one of the Social sciences and society good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
September 9, 2019Good article nomineeListed
Did You Know
A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on July 26, 2019.
The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that Joe Biden prefers the Chevrolet Corvette, but Joe Biden prefers the Pontiac Trans Am?


"Did you know?" nomination

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The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Yoninah (talk) 22:44, 23 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • Reviewed: Gregory Gray
  • Comment: Given the political nature of this DYK—the real Joe Biden is, of course, currently running for POTUS—I've presented a few alt hooks. I want to balance the quirkiness/humor of the subject with the seriousness it warrants. I believe these hooks are grounded in uncontroversial fact while still stirring a reader's interest. ALT0, ALT2, and ALT4 are the main hooks; ALT1 and ALT3 are just slight tweaks that signal the connection to The Onion. I think the versions that leave out "The Onion" have a little mystery: saying "Joe Biden" twice, but with only one bolded, leaves room for curiosity and should encourage clickthroughs. On the other hand, clarity may be preferable to avoid seeming too flip (another idea is to label the first one "the real Joe Biden", to further clarify the fictional nature of the latter). Also, feel free to tweak the wording of ALT0 and ALT1 if you'd like—I originally wrote "was a fan of", but that seemed a tad colloquial and may have slightly overstated the case. —BLZ · talk 22:23, 2 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Created by Brandt Luke Zorn (talk). Self-nominated at 22:23, 2 July 2019 (UTC).[reply]

  • This article is new enough and long enough. The hook facts are cited inline and any of them could be used, the article is neutral and I detected no copyright or plagiarism issues. A QPQ has been done. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:41, 20 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you Cwmhiraeth! Quick note: I just tweaked the wording of ALT0 and ALT1 from "Biden thought" to "Biden has said he thought". That way the sentence stays focused on his verifiable public statements about what he thought at the time, rather than trying to read his mind or know his true heart or anything like that. Plus, past-tense "thought" kinda suggests "used to think, but no longer does", which is another type of mind-reading and implies the article might have a dramatic twist that isn't there. Putting the changes out there so it doesn't seem like I'm trying to pull a switcheroo now it's been approved. —BLZ · talk 08:05, 20 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
(butting in) - strong preference for ALt 3; alt 1 is rather “so what”. Ceoil (talk) 22:35, 20 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I think that's probably right. I was going for a sort of "double take" effect with ALT0 and 1, but the not-very-inherently-interesting-in-its-own-right–ness of the fact dampens it. And the ambiguity in ALT2 is more confusing than it is intriguing. ALT3 would be best. —BLZ · talk 23:09, 20 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hi, I came by to promote this, but I don't understand this thread. ALT3 totally gives away the joke. I'd like to promote ALT2 to a quirky slot, but a citation is needed in the first paragraph under Background per WP:DYKSG#D2. Thanks, Yoninah (talk) 22:04, 23 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Yoninah: I'd still be OK with ALT2. I was leaning on the safe side, but if the joke's fine with coordinators then I'm fine with it too. Thanks for catching that uncited graf; it was such general biographical information that I figured I'd get around to citing later, but looks like it slipped my mind. I've cited it now using one of the longer, more "Real Biden"-focused articles that I'd already used elsewhere. —BLZ · talk 22:26, 23 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Article title

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Should this be moved to Diamond Joe per WP:NATURAL? – Anne drew 15:27, 6 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

He's not always "Diamond Joe" in The Onion, though, and the character is more properly identified as "Joe Biden" regardless of whether he also has a nickname or two. I'm not sure when or where the nickname "Diamond Joe" was introduced (it probably wouldn't be too hard to track down tho, tbh) but it was not used in the character's full-fledged debut article, and there are numerous other examples where it doesn't get used.
That said, I'll admit the title is slightly awkward. I followed the convention used to disambiguate fictional characters in TV shows: "[Character Name] (Media Title)", like "Michael Scott (The Office)". More recently, I've thought "Joe Biden in The Onion" might be a better title. "Joe Biden (The Onion)" follows from the (widespread) interpretation of the Onion Biden as a distinct character in his own right; on the other hand, "Joe Biden in The Onion" is more open to understanding it as a portrayal of a real person—which of course it fundamentally is—yet it doesn't altogether exclude consideration of the character as "a character" either. —BLZ · talk 20:58, 6 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Since this is a situation somewhat similar, we could follow the Stephen Colbert (character) format, perhaps with something along the lines of "Joe Biden (The Onion character)", which also creates the distinction BLZ was mentioning. —Cerebral726 (talk) 14:15, 7 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The natural dab here would be Uncle Joe, as has been noted by 3rd party publications (e.g.). More importantly, this doesn't seem to be anything that couldn't be dealt with as a (brief) subsection of Joe's own page, for all the work its compilers put into it. To the extent it's a separate thing, it's just Joe Biden as a meme or character in popular culture; The Onion is part of that portrayal but not the end of it. — LlywelynII 14:09, 6 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Why does this article exist on Wikipedia?

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Somebody please explain to me why The Onion's depiction of Joe Biden is notable enough to have it's own Wikipedia article? Are there any other Wikipedia pages that cover The Onion's depiction of a public figure? For instance, after the 2000 election The Onion had a series of articles depicting Al Gore as a depressed loser having lost the election but you don't see a Wikipedia article about that. There's no Donald Trump Onion article either and he gets just as much coverage as Joe Biden. Somebody please explain this to me. Why is this worthy of it's own article over other things parodied in The Onion? This all feels political. I don't understand?--Dr who1975 (talk) 17:37, 7 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The answer lies in the unusually high level of popular and critical success attained by the Onion's version of Biden, which has attracted far more sustained commentary than their portrayal of any other public figure. They may have portrayed Al Gore in a consistent style for a period of time, but they certainly didn't render Gore as an ice sculpture—and more to the point, their portrayal of Gore has not been the subject of enduring commentary. Maybe there could be articles about other Onion characterizations, and maybe those would stand on their own two legs—no one's tried, to my knowledge. You could compare Saturday Night Live parodies of Donald Trump and Saturday Night Live parodies of Sarah Palin, which stand as examples of recent satirical portrayals (or series of portrayals) that drew substantial commentary from secondary sources. There's also an entire "Cultural depictions of politicians" category.
There could be other articles about other satirical portrayals of other politicians, they would just have to establish their notability just like this article does. Off the top of my head, Saturday Night Live parodies of Gerald Ford would probably be noteworthy enough to merit its own separate article, given the reputedly outsize impact made by the SNL depiction of Ford as a clumsy pratfalling bumbler. Same goes for George H. W. Bush and The Simpsons, in light of his famous remark that "American families [should be] a lot more like the Waltons and a lot less like the Simpsons" and the show's subsequent portrayal of the senior Bush over several otherwise-unrelated episodes. I've also thought that there could be an article on Will Ferrell's depictions of George W. Bush, which started on SNL but carried over to other media, including a Broadway show. —BLZ · talk 20:04, 7 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]