Beloved humor site and “America’s Finest News Source” The Onion has been sold to San Francisco resident and Twilio co-founder Jeff Lawson, who says “The Onion is an institution, a national treasure, and we need it.”

The new satire site The Onion actually used to have its own San Francisco print edition from 2005 to 2009, competing with the likes of the SF Weekly and SF Bay Guardian. That print edition died the same death as those two alt-weeklies, but earlier. And The Onion is becoming, in one small way, a San Francisco publication again, as Variety reports that The Onion has been sold to Twilio co-founder Jeff Lawson, who just happens to be a San Francisco resident.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“The Onion is an institution, a national treasure, and we need it,” Lawson said on Twitter after the deal closed. “But its success is based on something different than most media companies. The Onion has been stifled, along with most of the Internet, by byzantine cookie dialogs, paywalls, bizarro belly fat ads, and clickbait content. And we’ve had enough. The Internet sucks, and it’s time we made it better. It’s time to focus on customers – end users – again.”

He then promptly asked readers to donate $1, linking to an Onion post entitled Give Us $1 Or ‘The Onion’ Disappears Forever.

Lawson is not technically the sole owner of The Onion. The site will now be owned by a parent company called Global Tetrahedron, which is a fake running-joke company that’s long been used as a gag line in Onion articles. The newly-formed real version of Global Tetrahedron bought The Onion from G/O Media, the conglomerate that bought and handled (or mishandled, as many would say) the former Gawker media sites Deadspin, Jezebel, and Lifehacker, all of which they have since sold off.

Former NBC News reporter Ben Collins takes over as The Onion’s new CEO. On Thursday, Collins tweeted, “We’re keeping the entire staff, bringing back The Onion News Network, and share the wealth with staff. Basically, we’re going to let them do whatever they want. Get excited.”

Related: The Onion Suggests San Francisco Should Just Move Out Of San Francisco Already [SFist]

Image via The Onion

Hanging today in The Cloisters of New York, The Hunt for the Unicorn Company is perhaps the most famous series of tapestries in human history, numbering seven in total, six of which survive in full. Likely designed in Paris but woven in either Brussels or Liège from 1495 to 1505, they consist of metallic threads, silk, and wool. Their still vibrant colors are the product of dye plants.

As the tapestries demonstrate, the hunt for a tech "unicorn" — a mythical company with magically high valuation before its initial public offering — has been ongoing for centuries. Thematically central to the tapestries' capitalist allegory is the invincibility of the magical unicorn entity, which wields power and potential profitability beyond mortal measure, but which is roughly calculated to exceed $1 billion dollars, contemporary U.S.

Simultaneously, of course, the unicorn's capture is acknowledged through artifice as fantastical: A feat perhaps best left to weavers and their dreaming.

"The Hunt for the Unicorn Company" tapestries were owned by the La Rochefoucauld family of France for several centuries, first noted in a 1728 inventory. They survived the French Revolution and in the 20th century were purchased by noted angel investor John D. Rockefeller, who hung them in his own castle before donating them to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1938.

In the first tapestry above, "The Hunters Enter the Woods," nobleman and venture capitalists (these are of course all men despite their long hair fashions) steel themselves to search for their target. Their fortune and fame — their very portfolios — depend on the hunt.

In this tapestry, the unicorn company kneels before a tall white fountain, representing bountiful revenue streams, with pheasants and goldfinches hanging on its ledge, their pairs signifying procreation and scalability.

The Unicorn is Attacked

To deliver acceptable returns on the hunt, the assembled party relies on a limited number of spears and weapons, rendering crucial the magical billion dollar threshold the unicorn represents.

The Unicorn Is Nearly Sodomized As It Defends Itself

Often, however, the creature can prove difficult to tame, driven near-mad by the bilious forces of market speculation. Indeed, its very disruptiveness, the source of its perceived power, makes the unicorn a wild, unpredictable animal.

The Unicorn is Killed and Brought to the Castle

Eventually, at least in the realm of the imagination, the unicorn is slain — this is known as the "exit." The unicorn is then brought to the castle, an allegory for the market.

The Unicorn is in Captivity and No Longer Dead

The unicorn's death, of course, is a temporary martyrdom. Revived in the captive hands of shareholders, it is tamed, reigned in, and fed from a tree of pomegranates, a common representation of fertility, revenue, and growth.

As works of art, The Hunt for the Unicorn Company tapestries have an inestimable value. Although in this market, would it hurt them to be a little more accessible, or maybe at least get some banner ads?

Previously: Uber Investor: The Bay Area Bubble Will Pop This Year, And More Than Tech Will Suffer

Bombastic "Save the Date" videos are, it seems, the new choreographed wedding entrances. Take, for example, this insane "Save the Date," care of a local lawyer couple, which made the rounds today. It looks like the trailer for a straight-to-Encore action flick. Behold:

Bambo + Janice Epic Wedding Trailer from Major Diamond Productions on Vimeo.

Above The Law has the details:

Want to see what it looks like when a fourth-year Weil Gotshal associate plans to marry a family law practitioner from a small firm? It looks like it’s going to rival the epic display of elegance and class that is the upcoming Kimye wedding...They met at U. San Francisco Law, and they’ve been together ever since. Here’s their wedding website — bosswedding.com — no details, no registries, just their save the date video, which is virtually indescribable save for its res ipsa loquitur flair.

Congratulations and best wishes to Bambo and Janice. Res ipsa loquitur to all!

[Jezebel]
[Major Diamond Productions]

See, now that's funny. Almost.

Two-year-old Mid-Market cafe and eatery Machine — who, last week, poked fun at area addicts and homeless, among other characters in the changing neighborhood — responded to SFist's criticism via this new sign! And I love it. It's like the Ja'mie King of non-apologies, though not very quiche.

Anyway, you should check out Machine if you're in the area. It's actually quite nice.

Previously: Mid-Market Cafe Pokes Fun At Area Drug Addicts, Homeless

Everything But The News is a news parody show, similar to The Daily Show, but with more PBS-focused jokes. In it, freelance reporter/out and proud Canadian Steve Goldbloom ventures throughout the Bay Area to get the word on the latest and greatest in tech. He's funny. The show, thus far, is funny. And they just did this report on San Francisco ridesharing.

Behold:

Delightful. Look for it each Wednesday.

(And on a personal note to Uber CEO Travis Kalanick: Don't wear flip flops to the office/ever. It's the passive-aggressive form of wearing a hoodie. I say that not out of ire toward you, but out of caring too much. Should the mood strike, the Sak's for Men Store has a wonderful selection of nifty shoes for men. Men just like you. You're welcome.)

What would life be like had Michelle not been a part of Full House? Not a chic one, at the very least. It would have, in part, been a world without this. But in this Next To Normal-like reimagining, we discover a more troubling version of the cherished '90s ABC sitcom wherein Michelle Tanner is but a figment of Danny Tanner's damaged psyche.

Hyper Vocal's Marisa Kabas explains:

...A YouTuber shared a video called “Full House Without Michelle.” The video constructs the opening credits and a scene from the show to make it appear as though Michelle was a figment of her dad’s imagination. The user explains: “Did Danny Tanner deal with the grief of losing his pregnant wife in a fatal car crash by creating an imaginary daughter named “Michelle?”

Harrowing.

In related news, last night on Watch What Happens Live, Ashley Olsen was (inexplicably) declared the better Olsen twin. The shocking decision was made by the twins' very own sister, Elizabeth Olsen. When asked by a caller to make Sophie's Choice between the two, Elizabeth put MK in the hands of an SS guard. "Ashley remembered my birthday," the actress explained, "but I don't hold grudges against Mary-Kate forgetting mine. She was out of town!"

Thank you to Second City for giving us these dramatic readings from women using actual message threads from gay men on the apps Grindr and Scruff. Yes, they are full of misspellings, both drunken and ESL-related. And it gets pretty dirty and audio-NSFW. Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!

John Oliver On The Tech Industry | Crunchies 2013

Last night I had the pleasure of watching John Oliver emcee the Crunchies. His opening monologue was only brimming not with attacks on San Francisco tech culture, but also how the tech world has loss its sense of geekdom (“Success has changed you,” he told the audience at Davies regarding a Spider-Man misquote to no one seemed to catch.) It was all in good fun — pointed, bitchy, accurate fun.

In part, he said:

"Why do you need an award ceremony in the tech industry? What more adulation do you... you already have almost all the money in the world. Why do you need awards as well after that? ... You’re pissing off an entire city. Not just with what you do at work, but how you get to work. "

He later declared San Francisco to be a modern-day Wolf of Wall Street "with 100% of the wealth, but only 10% of the sex."

As for the protest outside the show, it was a quiet affair. Not the bombastic call to arms I had imagined. One protester wore a glittery top hat, another carried an anti-Twitter sign. The mood died down as soon as the show started.

During the opening of the awards, SFCiti's Ron Conway commented on the tension simmering in the city right now. He told the audience that, although everyone inside Davies had helped cut unemployment in San Francisco by half, they must also act as leaders in housing and transportation.

Anyway, winners of the night were people with lots money — specifically, Bitcoin (Best Technology Achievement), Airbnb (Best Collaborative Consumption Service), Upworthy (Fastest Rising Startup), Zendesk (Sexiest Enterprise Startup), Edward Snowden’s NSA Revelations (Biggest Social Impact), and Uber's Travis Kalanick (CEO of the Year).

See the entire list of winners here.

Oh boy, do I love editorial notes left in a published piece. A glimpse inside the minds that run your favorite publication. Take, for example, today's death announcement of former child star Shirley Temple in the Chron.

Shirley's shocked face says it all.

In reality, LaSalle or his editor probably didn't want to use cliche words in the headline. Understandable. They eventually went with "Child star Shirley Temple dies at age 85."

On the plus side, Temple is now eligible for the publication's top dead people.

[Romenesko]