Fascination with the Bizarre and Arcane tabloid ends print, goes online

[Kathryn41 3,205]

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In Depth:

Media

Invisible web tangles Bat Boy

Sensational journalism's landscape shifts from paper to internet with end of tabloid's print run

Last Updated Aug. 27, 2007

By Georgie Binks

(photo) During his presidential campaign in May 2000, George W. Bush displays a copy of the tabloid Weekly World News to reporters during a light moment aboard his campaign plane. (Eric Draper/Associated Press)

In Depth

When the Weekly World News ceases publication of its paper version this week (it continues online at weeklyworldnews.com), it may signal the end of a golden age of tabloid journalism with bizarre headlines about Bat Boys, Martian invasions and psychic possessions.

It won't, however, end humanity's interest in the oddball. Our fascination with circus sideshows and outlandish tabloids has migrated from paper to pixel, from impermanent ink to searchable websites.

In the final issue of Weekly World News a headline screams "Baby delivered inside avocado" — an apparent mistake by a fertility lab technician who contaminated his needle with avocado bits from lunch. Another headline, "Fly-eyed baby," appears to show a baby with eyes resembling a housefly's. As ridiculous as both stories and their accompanying photos appear, it's difficult to ignore the "artist's conception" images and photographs.

Prof. Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, who studies disability issues at Atlanta's Emory University, explains: "The Western world has always been fascinated with people who possess human variations we think of as disabilities — the more rare and spectacular the better."

From circus to Springer, the appeal is ancient

In ancient times, societies considered people with birth defects prodigies carrying a message from the gods. By the 1800s the public paid to see people considered "different." Bearded women and Siamese twins became a staple of circus sideshows.

However, by the mid-1970s, as society became more sensitive about people with disabilities or differences, it became politically incorrect to gawk at them at sideshows. That didn't, however, stop the voyeurism. Says Garland-Thomson, "When conjoined twins are born or are going to be separated, there's always a medical event around their separation and the doctor becomes a hero. He's not a whole lot different from P.T. Barnum. The freak show has just changed its form."

So what's the fascination? "It makes us feel normal to look at people who are different. There's a thrill. It's like driving by an accident on the road. We want to look at it," says Garland-Thomson.

University of Idaho anatomist Jeff Meldrum, who investigates sasquatch sightings, agrees. "We, as a species, hold a fascination for the mysterious, and for the macabre. We love rubbernecking at accidents. We want to know what's happening around us and how it would potentially have an impact on us. [This] spirit of discovery runs central to science."

More visible, less press

Meldrum isn't mourning the demise of the Weekly World News. He says, "People often equate investigation into the subject of sasquatches with so many others that are justly or unjustly abused by that type of tabloid journalism. It makes it difficult for me to garner a serious audience among my peers."

In fact, much sasquatch research along with pictures and videos can be found on many internet sites like YouTube.com. Internet sites with accounts of other unusual phenomena abound. Edward Meyer, vice-president of exhibits and archives for Ripley Entertainment, the creators of Ripley's Believe it or Not, says the internet has transformed the landscape of the weird and wonderful.

Unlike the Weekly World News, Ripley's publishes stories and photographs that are true. But Meyer laments the wide circulation of oddities on the internet. "Certainly the availability online makes my job harder. People can find it on TV and the internet. It may be politically incorrect to look at these types of things, but I don't think it's stopping anyone from talking about it or looking at it."

Indeed, people can keep their dirty little fascinations indoors and gawk in private at prurient websites. Garland-Thomson says, "In the 19th-century in Paris, the morgue was opened and people could walk through and look at dead bodies. These days we can do it by going to celebritymorgue.com."

While the internet may be cutting into the business of those who dispense the fantastic, decorum and good taste also play a role. "Recently a doctor in India sent me a picture of a baby in the hospital with one eye," says Meyer. "I wouldn't buy those pictures or publish them, because it's an invasion of that family's privacy, but I still had to look at them."

Have you heard about the...

Urban legends, also a staple of Weekly World News, don't last long these days with the emergence of websites like snopes.com, which exists to dispel them. Barbara Mikkelson, the site's founder, assesses rumours, hoaxes and urban legends for their veracity. She also maintains a section of her site for weird news stories. One of its latest comes directly from the news service Reuters, with a tale of a man who left his dead mother sitting in an armchair for two years because he couldn't face organizing a funeral.

Weird, but true.

Whither Bat Boy?

Yes, shoppers won't be able to surreptitiously grab a copy Weekly World News in the supermarket lineup, but they can still peek at the tabloid's favourite characters like Bat Boy online.

Our appetite for the bizarre is insatiable, and the bizarre nature of what we see can have a lasting and memorable impact.

Meyer says, "I went to the last freak show at the CNE [Canada's national summer fair] in the '70s, and the Rubber Man left an extremely strong impression. He could stretch his skin for almost a foot in some places, and when he let it go it would snap like a rubber band. That has stayed with me."

[Elphie 0]

I used to read that magazine b/c of all the outrageous and funny stuff that was in it. I haven't bought it in 3 years or so because it got to the point where it wasn't even funny anymore, just stupid. I'm not surprised they aren't going to be printing it anymore.