‘15-Year-Old Figure Skating Sensation No Match For Zamboni’ Satire: Some Say it Went ‘Too Far’

‘15-Year-Old Figure Skating Sensation No Match For Zamboni’ Satire: Some Say it Went ‘Too Far’
The Onion photo--'15-Year-Old Figure Skating Sensation No Match For Zamboni'--was panned by some people as going too far on social media.
Jack Phillips
2/20/2014
Updated:
7/18/2015

A photo from satire news site The Onion showing a Photoshopped image of a 15-year-old figure getting crushed by a “Zamboni” went too far. 

The photo shows the device, which is actually an Olympia Ice Resurfacer--not a Zamboni, smashing the skater, with the skater’s legs jutting out from the bottom.

There’s a huge amount of blood on the ice as well.

On The Onion’s Facebook page, some people weren’t happy about it.

“That is disgusting!” wrote one person wrote. Another added: “This picture is uncalled for! You went too far.”

“Thats just [expletive] up. Goodbye onion,” wrote another person.

Said one, “First and last time I comment on an Onion article. Yuck. That is all.”

Others wrote on the Onion’s Facebook page that some users need to lighten up or implied as much.

“If this only happened in reality I would actually be bothered to watch the Olympics,” said one.

And to be clear, the Onion is a satire news website. None of the stories are real.

“The Onion uses invented names in all its stories, except in cases where public figures are being satirized. Any other use of real names is accidental and coincidental,” the website’s disclaimer reads. 

On Wednesday, an article from The Onion saying figure skater Carolina Kostner “plunged through a hazardous thin patch of ice during her short program at the Iceberg Skating Palace” tricked many into thinking it was real, and not satire. 

Jack Phillips is a breaking news reporter with 15 years experience who started as a local New York City reporter. Having joined The Epoch Times' news team in 2009, Jack was born and raised near Modesto in California's Central Valley. Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/jackphillips5
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