this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2026
547 points (99.1% liked)

Not The Onion

21382 readers
801 users here now

Welcome

We're not The Onion! Not affiliated with them in any way! Not operated by them in any way! All the news here is real!

The Rules

Posts must be:

  1. Links to news stories from...
  2. ...credible sources, with...
  3. ...their original headlines, that...
  4. ...would make people who see the headline think, “That has got to be a story from The Onion, America’s Finest News Source.”

Please also avoid duplicates.

Comments and post content must abide by the server rules for Lemmy.world and generally abstain from trollish, bigoted, ableist, or otherwise disruptive behavior that makes this community less fun for everyone.

And that’s basically it!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] luthis@lemmy.nz 8 points 2 days ago (9 children)

Why would Putin care about this guy at all? Wouldn't it be worse for his image?

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (6 children)

The US has a long and storied history of producing high profile weirdos that get trapped in a moment of international policy, like a mosquito in amber, and just keep hanging out with a foreign government we re-designated as The Enemy decades ago.

Seagal has Putin. Dennis Rodman was tight with Kim Jung il. Johnny Depp is good friends with Mohammad bin Salman. Gal Gadot is a perennial Netanyahu gadfly. Rob Schneider campaigned for Victor Orban. Oliver Stone and Robert Redford still rep Fidel Castro.

If you go into the back pages of US History, you'll find moments when US officials attempted a thaw or brokered some kind of cooperative pact with a modern enemy nation. And typically, the State Department would send along an affable oaf or enthusiastic wanna-be celeb ambassador to make nice with the foreign head of state.

And then US policy changes, but the celebs don't get the memo.

[–] GripenGal@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Putin also has Roger Waters :(

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Waters is far more anti-Ukrainian Nationalist than pro-Putin. But yes, another great example.

Although Ukraine is another great candidate to watch for "Country that ages like milk, but social media dead-enders keep hanging on to" in ten or fifteen years.

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (6 replies)