The Syrup Trap: Canada’s Answer to The Onion

Where news gets creative enough for us to want to read it.

If you’re among the many that enjoy the satirical nature of The Onion, and you live north of the 49th parallel, you may want to start filling that satire quota jar with Canada’s own The Syrup Trap. This student-run magazine published out of UBC has found enormous success by lampooning people, politics and just about anything else with a pulse.

Founder and editor-in-chief Nick Zarzycki began his studies at UBC in history, economics and commerce, but soon found there wasn’t much being offered in terms of campus culture. To correct this, he—along with a handful of funny friends—launched the “fake news” online magazine, choosing an old Mitch Hedberg quote about waffles being pancakes with built-in traps for syrup as the publication’s namesake.

Zarzycki greatly enjoyed university-run comedy magazines in the U.S, such as the Harvard Lampoon, and was aware of how magazines like that fed into The Onion and Saturday Night Live. In an interview with Stephen Quinn from On the Coast, Zarzycki says he launched the website to, “create something cool for everyone to read,” and in two short years the magazine went from poking fun at UBC’s many foibles to Vancouver at-large, before finally branching out to all of Canada.

With their success, “Canada’s favourite humour magazine,” as they call themselves, introduced a print edition that was published with this summer’s edition of Geist magazine. This milestone was an opportunity for the writers at The Syrup Trap “to explore new ground,” says Zarzycki.

Their work has since appeared in the National Post as well as other major conglomerates in the media. CBC news has even retweeted some of their favourite headlines, including “Government of Canada pledges 30-million dollars to ignoring science,” and the more recent, “Vancouver commuter thrown off bus for making eye contact.”

While some of the same models and strategies from The Onion are employed, The Syrup Trap developed their own style by doing what they like—silly jokes, “jokes that are a little bit more absurd,” says Zarzycki, “a little bit sillier than you would find on The Onion and on The Daily Show, for example.” This silly nature is implemented with every article they publish, and it’s what they do best.

“Everyone tends to take themselves a little bit too seriously,” says Zarzycki. “And that’s why satire is so enjoyable.” But what the publication achieves is more than that—satire has a way of drawing us into the irony behind a news story, and making the material more relatable as well as more enjoyable to read. The Syrup Trap has made a business of finding humour in the news.

Art Director Paul Bucci says, “I think humour builds culture more creatively than any other art form,” due in large part to its accessibility. “There’s not a lot of culture-building things out there that are so easy to get to.”

For example, the story of British Columbia selling groundwater to Nestle may have raised eyebrows among those in the Lower Mainland, but Zarzycki’s story, “B.C. Trades Drinking Water to Nestle for a Bunch of Aero Bars,” is among the many stories published this summer that led to their ability to offer a print edition.

The philosophy and intent of The Syrup Trap is aimed fully at drawing attention by poking fun. “We are a silly publication. We’re not scathing,” claims Zarzycki. “We’re very serious about being silly.”