Twitters, Titters, and the Onion He Says

Montage Art, books, diverse creations 14 Open Book 16 Chapter and Verse 18 Cinéaste’s Orgy 19 Off the Shelf 20 Women in a Woeful World Last year, he directed The On- ion’s coverage of the tumultuous 2008 election; with the political intensity now dialed down, he is focusing on its online presence, including Twitter and Facebook pages and partnerships with You- With a front page from The Onion projected in the Tube, iTunes, and Google. He led background, Thurston a redesign of the website and is emcees the 2009 SXSW working to extend The Onion’s Interactive Web Awards. voice into new online outlets and platforms like the iPhone. “All that conversation about newspapers online,” Twitters, Titters, and The Onion he says. “I love being a part of it.” His media tastes Baratunde Thurston fuses politics, portals, and punch lines. are certifiably twenty-first century: “Twitter and Face- by craig lambert book are my primary means of following people and in- ou’re saying, “Not another The energetic Thurston (baratunde.com/ stitutions.” He has been booked to host a 10- one of these techno-geeky blog) has a job that taps his triad of pas- part television series premiering in August black guys with political pas- sions: since 2007, he’s been Web and politi- on the Science Channel, Popular Science’s Fu- sions who does stand-up com- cal editor of The Onion, the satirical weekly ture Of, which will examine how technologi- edy and blogs.” But that’s Ba- newspaper that appears free in sidewalk cal innovations of today will reshape our ratundeY Thurston ’99. “I operate in three boxes in eight U.S. cities and online glob- lives five, 10, or 25 years in the future. major spheres: comedy, politics, and tech- ally (www.theonion.com). Like Jon Stew- Thurston grew up in Washington, D.C., nology,” he explains. “An ideal zone for me art and Andy Borowitz ’80 (see “April Fool in Columbia Heights, where drugs and po- is where all three overlap. Politics is the Every Day,” May-June, page 35), The Onion lice activity were common. (His father was heart; comedy and technology are tools invents untrue-but-funny news stories, of- killed attempting to buy drugs when the to amplify or deliver a message. Humor is ten based on current events. “It’s ridicu- boy was very young.) His politically active a really effective way to talk about what I lous that I work here,” says Thurston, in his mother, who worked as a computer pro- really care about: politics and justice.” SoHo office. “I’m still giddy about it.” grammer in the office of the Comptroller of Photograph SXSW/Matthew Wedgwood Harvard Magazine 13 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 MONTAGE MONTAGE the Currency, raised him and his sister OPEN BOOK A meticulous ex- “with a keen sense of history and justice,” cavation of personal he says. “Every week we worked in a soup history, Jacob’s Cane: kitchen, actually getting our hands dirty.” The Slovenliness A Jewish Family’s Jour- They also had the first computer on their ney from the Four block. Lands of Lithuania to Life changed in seventh grade when, of the Intellectual the Ports of London helped by a scholarship, Thurston entered and Baltimore (Basic Sidwell Friends, the Quaker private school Books, $27.95), took professor of English Elisa New to the Baltics three times to where President Obama’s daughters are construct “a memoir in five generations.” From her researches, she emerged with now enrolled. He was already addicted details evocative, emotionally resonant, and funny—as in this excerpt from chapter to news and would keep one earphone nine, “The Social-eest.” plugged into National Public Radio or the BBC during class, “just in case I got bored hat had possessed my nience. As the person who took care of her with school,” he says, smiling. Sidwell was great-grandfather in 1914 to father in his later years after his wife was “a major reorientation, the critical thing W commit his time and energy institutionalized and after Jean had moved that sets up your life,” he says. “When to a run for Congress he surely knew on to her second of three husbands, living the Rodney King verdict came out, we would be unsuccessful? Like the questions with him and keeping him in breakfasts and protested with the support of the school. surrounding Jacob’s birthplace, Amelia’s dinners, in clean shirts and pocket squares, Most of the students at Sidwell are liberals illness, Uncle Baron’s character, and Jean’s in stamps and envelopes and typewriter from elite families who worked for places decision to send her sons to England, my ribbons, Myrtle had the experience to like the World Bank or the Clinton admin- aunts didn’t agree on an answer. Why prove that political commitments are hell istration. They felt good about their poli- should their father have chosen so quixot- on the housekeeping. With the whole top tics. The challenge in a place like that is the ic a way to spend the spring, summer, and floor of her house given over to her fa- denial. We had issues like the dispropor- fall as the Socialist Party candidate to rep- ther’s comforts, every entrance through tionate punishment of black students, the his bedroom door traditional curriculum, hiring more black was a rich tutorial in faculty. It was a little version of America, the slovenliness of with an extra dose of self-righteousness.” the intellectual. At Harvard, Thurston was “into” com- Cheap weeklies puter science and math, but concentrated dropped by the arm- in philosophy, which was more fun, he ex- chair, books piled plains. “I see things in structural, analytic in teetering heaps, ways and found a very comfortable home ashtrays overflow- in analytic philosophy. Logic is so clear, like ing, cigarettes loose, [computer] code. But in programming, a coffee dried to syr- mistyped semicolon can break down the up or Scotch whisky whole thing—that’s too sensitive. Phi- left in a cup—such losophy made my mind a lot sharper. You were the habits of learn to suss out the main point in a body international social- of information, and to recognize an original ism. thought after sparring with so many un- FROM THE BOOK FROM For Aunt Myrtle, original ones.” resent Baltimore in the Congress of the The Levy fam- her father’s social- He also joined the Signet Society and United States? And why, after this venture ily in 1928; Jacob ism made him late the Crimson, on both the photo and news holds the cane. failed, did he continue to defend socialist Only he and to dinner, distract- boards (“I couldn’t choose. I’m like Win- ideas in spite of his business success and Rivka Levy (far ed with his chil- nie-the-Pooh, I’ve always got my hands in his family’s bourgeois aspirations? left, flounced dren, tedious in many pots of honey.”) He was shocked that Aunt Myrtle and Aunt Jean each had dress) survived company, and in- “smart Harvard people didn’t know what the Nazis. her own way of explaining what it meant tolerant of what was going on in the world—revolution in that their father—a captain of industry, others thought “nice.” She, who could Sri Lanka, the Tamil Tigers,” so he launched as they represented him—could be a set her boys’ rooms to rights in fifteen an e-mail newsletter called NewsPhlash Red and a foe of unions simultaneously. minutes, came to know well the grace- for his black classmates, and started “to From a certain slight tightness around less habits of a sardonic socialist. Or at put my own attitude into the coverage,” the mouth and the faintest wrinkling of least she knew the tastes of one without he says. “It became my satirical take on the her nose, Aunt Myrtle showed that to her a wife to keep him in line. His daughters news, and that’s when people started re- socialism mostly meant domestic inconve- did their best to cope. sponding. That’s when I got funny.” After junior year, Thurston had lined 14 September - October 2009 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 MONTAGE HARVARDmagaZINE.COM up a dream summer internship at the Washington Post, where he had once been a gofer. But a repetitive-stress injury made What's New on the Web him unable to type; he had to forgo the internship and worked instead with the Harvard Magazine helps you stay connected to the University. Real-time updates Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club, play- and Harvard news can be sent directly to you so that you’re always in the know. ing Iago’s confederate Roderigo in Othello. Simply follow us on Twitter, become a Facebook fan, read our Web-only columns, or “That summer shifted everything,” he says. subscribe to one of our e-mail newsletters. “I had a lot of fun being onstage, interact- At harvardmagazine.com, the editors bring you a curated selection of timely ing with an audience.” news about Harvard, much of which doesn’t appear in the magazine. We regularly After college, he tried management con- report on campus happenings, alumni accomplishments, and faculty appointments. sulting in the high tech/communications We also read a wealth of publications and share links to Harvard-related stories that area before he and two partners started are important, provocative, or just plain fun! their own venture-capital firm with an ill-timed 2000 launch that collapsed along with the dot-com bubble.

Load more