Club is an online newspaper[2] and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media.

[3] The publication's name is a reference to audiovisual (AV) clubs typical of American high schools.

[4] In 1993, five years after the founding of The Onion, Stephen Thompson, a student at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, launched an entertainment section of the newspaper.

In the United States in the late 20th century, many high schools would have clubs for students who wanted to use and learn about speakers, projectors, and other video and audio equipment.

[citation needed] In December 2004, Stephen Thompson left his position as founding editor of The A.V.

"[18] On 26 April 2013, long-time writers Nathan Rabin, Tasha Robinson, and Genevieve Koski announced they would also be leaving the website to begin work on a new project with Scott Tobias and Keith Phipps.

[19] On 30 May 2013, those six writers were announced as becoming part of the senior staff of The Dissolve, a film website run by Pitchfork Media.

[21] In April and June 2014, senior staff writers Kyle Ryan, Sonia Saraiya, and Emily St. James[22] left the website for positions at Entertainment Weekly, Salon, and Vox Media, respectively.

[25] Following his departure from The Dissolve earlier that month, Nathan Rabin returned to write freelance for the A.V.

[26] He renewed his regular column "My World of Flops" Archived 6 November 2013 at the Wayback Machine.

[27] In January 2016, Univision Communications acquired "a 40 percent, controlling stake" in Onion Inc., the parent company of The A.V.

Club's editor-at-large, John Teti, posted an article on the website announcing the upcoming release of a television series, titled The A.V.

The site was subsequently migrated from Bulbs, an internal content management system developed by Onion Inc. to the Gawker-developed Kinja platform.

[39] In April 2019, Gizmodo and The Onion were sold to private-equity firm Great Hill Partners, which combined them into a new company named G/O Media.

[42] In early 2020, former People magazine and Entertainment Weekly editor Patrick Gomez was named editor-in-chief, and it was announced that the site was opening a Los Angeles bureau.

written articles during the G/O Media era would be removed, familiar writers would return (including Nathan Rabin and Ignatiy Vishnevetsky), and a subscriber program will be introduced.

[51] On 9 December 2010, the website ComicsComicsMag revealed a capsule review for the book Genius, Isolated: The Life and Art of Alex Toth had been fabricated.

[55] The award went to writers Oliver Sava, Caitlin Rosberg, Shea Hennum, and Tegan O'Neil.

Club began publishing website-consensus, year-end album and film rankings, together with lists created by individual writers.