History Main / PoesLaw

* ''WesternAnimation/BojackHorseman'': Sarah Lynn's teen pop musical career was a [[TakeThatAudience long winded critique]] of the TeenageWasteland mindset (e.g. "My Heinie Isn't Too Tiny"). However, her demographic were supporters of that lifestyle and not wanting to lose them, she walked the line by settling on {{Indecisive|Parody}} {{Deconstructive Parod|y}}ies. This left her very disillusioned over her fans and how she was perceived and heard, which was the beginning of a long, painful burnout...

* At the First West Coast Computer Faire, Apple engineer Steve Wozniak had made several gag brochures for a successor to the MITS Altair called the "Zaltair." The ad copy was filled with absurd claims, like having 18 expansion card slots, a new "BAZIC" programming language that could be rewritten by the user, and a case that will "add to the decor of any living room." People bombarded the MITS stand with questions about the new model, and it wasn't until late in the day that anyone caught on to the joke. Today, these brochures are highly sought-after collector's items. What made it plausible was Woz's unorthodox sense of humor and that everything listed there ''did'' really exist at that time — the fictional computer just had little to do with those features. Except maybe 18 expansion slots — this was how many slots were in the full-feature ''Altair 8800'' MB, though not all of them could be used for expansion.[[note]]MITS' S-100 bus was a passive backplane, and at least three to four slots were taken up by the [[UsefulNotes/CentralProcessingUnit CPU]] board, [[UsefulNotes/RandomAccessMemory memory]] board, I/O board etc.[[/note]] The first UsefulNotes/ProgrammingLanguage that could be rewritten on-the-fly[[note]]John [=McCarthy=]'s Lisp[[/note]] was actually invented [[OlderThanTheythink back in '55]], but was virtually unknown in the microcomputer world, and a [[JustForPun case might be successfully built]] that the case that will "add to the decor of any living room" was present in Woz's own work — the fair was a venue where the UsefulNotes/AppleII was first unveiled, and it was the first fruit of Steve Jobs' famous "computer as appliance" philosophy.

** The root of the issue is that the site's proprietor, Andy Schlafly, keeps the site under tight control. The number of satirists has led him to become ever more paranoid and ban-happy... [[https://rationalwiki.org/w/images/5/56/Wigo1053_5.png the result being that only the parodists remain]], driving him ever-deeper into his mad spiral of paranoid banning.

* The "Pony Plot Perfection Project", a supposed fan project (which insists it's ''totally'' not sexually motivated) to edit episodes of ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' to avert AnimalsLackAttributes, which, given stereotypes about the show's fandom, would have been ''very'' potent ammunition for their detractors if true. [[https://www.deviantart.com/pppproject/journal/PPPP-April-Fools-362962878 The project lead eventually admitted to being a troll]] (the fact that their logo was a Swastika made of P's should have made this obvious), but [[https://trixiebooru.org/forums/pony/topics/pppproject-anatimically-correct-episodes-where-to-find-them-now some some fans claim to have seen actual episodes edited in this way]], so whether it's a joke, real, or a joke that some people took seriously enough to make true is up in the air.

* Creator/RogerEbert went political and wrote a [[https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/creationism-your-questions-answered blog post]] giving a statement of creationist beliefs, with the intention of making a point about people's inability to recognize irony. While many people did see the satire, a significant number of readers either thought he was being serious or assumed the site had been hacked. PZ Myers [[http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/09/there_is_such_a_thing_as_bad_s.php criticized]] the article, pointing out that when there are so many people making the same claims without irony, the joke becomes undetectable to anyone who doesn't already know Ebert's stance on the issue.

* [[https://twitter.com/etikapunks EtikaPunks]] is a Twitter account that claimed to have [=NFTs=][[note]]Non-Fungible Tokens, a type of Cryptocurrency where every unit is tied to a unique item, usually an image.[[/note]] based on the late WebVideo/{{Etika}}, a very popular African-American streamer who took his own life after a struggle with mental illness. Despite some very unusual comments from the Twitter account hinting that the whole thing was the work of a troll, the sheer audacity of trying to profit off of a deceased beloved figure, combined with various controversies around [=NFTs=] in general and some very questionable details about the [=NFTs'=] images (one of them depicted the bridge where Etika jumped from, while another depicted him [[UnfortunateImplications holding a banana with the title "Simian Species"]]) led to [[https://www.ginx.tv/en/youtube/etika-nft-enrage-fans-as-people-profit-from-dead-content-creator many people getting outraged]] at the whole thing.

* The "Pony Plot Perfection Project", a supposed fan project to edit episodes of ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' to avert AnimalsLackAttributes, which, given stereotypes about the show's fandom, would have been ''very'' potent ammunition for their detractors if true. [[https://www.deviantart.com/pppproject/journal/PPPP-April-Fools-362962878 The project lead eventually admitted to being a troll]] (the fact that their logo was a Swastika made of P's should have made this obvious), but [[https://trixiebooru.org/forums/pony/topics/pppproject-anatimically-correct-episodes-where-to-find-them-now some some fans claim to have seen actual episodes edited in this way]], so whether it's a joke, real, or a joke that some people took seriously enough to make true is up in the air.

* [[http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport The Borowitz Report]] is a satirical news blog hosted on ''{{Magazine/The New Yorker}}'s'' web site, which frequently confuses people (especially their right-wing US satire).

* UsefulNotes/SarahPalin mocked the way her opponents [[FelonyMisdemeanor obsess over minor misstatements of hers]] by releasing a blog post consisting entirely of erroneous statements made by President UsefulNotes/BarackObama. At least some of her detractors criticized the new "mistakes" from Mrs. Palin. Reimagined with [[BeamMeUpScotty common knowledge]] that Sarah Palin said, "I can see Russia from my house!" ... via Creator/Tina Fey's parody (the actual quote was that you can see Russia from a certain place in Alaska, which is true as far as it goes).

** This takes an entirely new and unexpected turn with the (at the time of this writing) relatively recent release of Film/TheLittleMermaid2023...

* The "Pony Plot Perfection Project", a supposed fan project to edit episodes of ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' to avert AnimalsLackAttributes, which, given stereotypes about the show's fandom, would have been ''very'' potent ammunition for their detractors if true. [[https://www.deviantart.com/pppproject/journal/PPPP-April-Fools-362962878 The project lead eventually admitted that the thing was just a joke]] (the fact that their logo was a Swastika made of P's should have made this obvious), but [[https://trixiebooru.org/forums/pony/topics/pppproject-anatimically-correct-episodes-where-to-find-them-now some fans claim to have seen actual episodes edited in this way]], so whether it's a joke, real, or a joke that some people took seriously enough to make true is up in the air.

* The "Pony Plot Perfection Project", a supposed fan project to edit episodes of ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' to avert NonHumansLackAttributes, which, given stereotypes about the show's fandom, would have been ''very'' potent ammunition for their detractors if true. [[https://www.deviantart.com/pppproject/journal/PPPP-April-Fools-362962878 The project lead eventually admitted that the thing was just a joke]] (the fact that their logo was a Swastika made of P's should have made this obvious), but [[https://trixiebooru.org/forums/pony/topics/pppproject-anatimically-correct-episodes-where-to-find-them-now some fans claim to have seen actual episodes edited in this way]], so whether it's a joke, real, or a joke that some people took seriously enough to make true is up in the air.

* Music/Vocaloid fans can’t seem to agree wherher HACHI’s song, ‘’[[https://youtu.be/HOz-9FzIDf0?si=h2OgQ8hXOttJs5Tk Matryoshka]]’’, is hiding a very complex message about mental health, or is just nonsense.

* Music/Vocaloid fans can’t seem to agree wherher HACHI’s song, ‘’[[https://youtu.be/HOz-9FzIDf0?si=h2OgQ8hXOttJs5Tk Matryoshka]]’’, is hiding a very complex message about mental health, or is just nonsense.

* OlderThanPrint: The entire story of Myth/{{Lilith}} has it's origins in a satirical book called the ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabet_of_Sirach Alphabet of Sirach]]'', which was filled with all kind of raunchy jokes. Yet medieval Jewish and later modern Christian authors really liked the idea of Eve not being the first woman. Lilith has been present in occult works (ranging from UsefulNotes/{{Kabbalah}} to UsefulNotes/{{Wicca}} to UsefulNotes/{{Satanism}}) ever since then.

* UsefulNotes/SarahPalin mocked the way her opponents [[FelonyMisdemeanor obsess over minor misstatements of hers]] by releasing a blog post consisting entirely of erroneous statements made by President UsefulNotes/BarackObama. At least some of her detractors criticized the new "mistakes" from Mrs. Palin. Reimagined with [[BeamMeUpScotty common knowledge]] that Sarah Palin said, "I can see Russia from my house!" ... via Tina Fey's parody (the actual quote was that you can see Russia from a certain place in Alaska, which is true as far as it goes).

* As a satire of excessive capitalism, an artist made a bench that you must pay to sit on; overstay your purchased welcome and the bench will ''impale you with steel spikes''. And now, a Chinese park owner who didn't get the joke [[http://www.metro.co.uk/news/838228-retractable-spikes-installed-on-park-benches-to-deter-lazy-bums actually wants to install these in his park]] to prevent hobos from hanging around on the benches.

* After years of secrecy English [[CropCircles crop circle]] makers Doug Bower and Dave Chorley decided to fess up to their pranks in 1991, only to find many UFO-believers deciding that although the circles were man-made, the two must have been possessed by aliens who had [[InsaneTrollLogic made the circles through them]]. As Podcast/{{Skeptoid}} sums up in an episode on crop circles:

* 2017 saw a sudden explosion in "flat Earth" conspiracy theories. The problem is that while it had been smoldering away in the background for centuries, the sudden influx included so many parodists and people just along for the meme and there's no way to tell them apart from the genuine article. It's entirely possible that there are ''no'' genuine believers outside the same few religious fundamentalists that have always carried the torch. Indeed, fans of Creator/TerryPratchett, whose ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' fantasy novels are set on a flat world, have gleefully pitched in with tongue-in-cheek support for the Flat Earthers: a general attitude among Pratchett fans who are in on the joke is to criticize the Flat Earthers for not going far enough and for leaving out the necessary supporting infrastructure of elephants and world turtle necessary for the cosmos to work. Some of the best Pratchett-inspired "support" for Flat Earthism includes finely detailed arguments for the existence of elephants and turtle having been hushed up by NASA, and is indistinguishable from genuine flat-Earth advocacy.
* Roosh "The Douche" Vash [[BlackComedyRape published a satirical article advocating the decriminalization of sexual assault]], [[InTheStyleOf inspired by A Modest Proposal.]] [[PersonaNonGrata This got him banned from entering the United Kingdom]] because people thought he ''really was'' advocating decriminalizing rape. However, to double dip this trope, the article was so unremarkable among his body of work (he was already famous as an anti-feminist and open rape apologist) that there's no way to tell if he really thought this was an obvious exaggeration or if it was a desperate ParodyRetcon.

* It's hard to tell how many people really believe in the idea that the MandelaEffect, the real phenomenon of mass false memories, happens because the "wrong" version you remember was actually true until reality changed somehow. Maay of the posts on the Mandela Effect [[Website/{{Reddit}} subreddit]] feel like {{troll}}ing, with people either pretending to be really dense (with obviously contrived misspellings of celebrity names, or thinking that well-known, very much alive celebrities really died years ago), or coming up with overly complex, nonsensical explanations of what might be causing the effect (Parallel universes colliding! Time travelers deliberately messing with things!), all seemingly to goof around with the small handful of posters who feel it's SeriousBusiness.

* Amid 2020's worldwide debate over systemic racism and removing monuments to historical figures who perpetuated bigotry, someone spray-painted [[USefulNotes/{{Denmark}} Copenhagen's]] landmark statue of Literature/TheLittleMermaid with the words "RACIST FISH". Which is a bit confusing, since even the most nitpicky scholar would have trouble labeling either the story or the mermaid "racist". Nobody knows whether it was sincere-but-misguided activists, drunk pranksters, people trying to satirize the whole statue debate by painting a nonsensical slogan on an innocent marker...

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS8E24TheSimpsonsSpinOffShowcase "The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase"]] satirized the trend of TV networks trying to make spinoffs and successor series that are frequently inferior to the original show (this episode predated ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' and Creator/SethMacFarlane's animated shows), with all three segments deliberately badly scripted, bland and cheesy. However, some fans mistook the StylisticSuck for actual bad writing. Creator/MattGroening was worried that fans would react that way. This happened mostly due two reasons:
** This wasn't the first episode that gave some of the Springfield recurring characters ADayInTheLimelight; the previous season had the episode "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS7E2122ShortFilmsAboutSpringfield 22 Short Films About Springfield]]", [[PoorlyDisguisedPilot which also served as the pilot for a potential spinoff titled "Tales of Springfield"]], albeit that one had the series' usual tone and none of the (intentional) bad writing this episode had.
** Second, [[ParodyDisplacement many of the younger viewers had no idea the shorts were meant to be a parody of existing shows]], since, at least in the second and third short's case, were based on decades-old works that had very short runs (for a good reason) and thus were pretty obscure. Lisa being replaced by a DumbBlonde teen in the third segment came as particularly baffling to some, [[AluminumChristmasTrees not realizing something like that happened in]] ''Series/TheBradyBunchVarietyHour''.

* While it certainly has moments of sincerity, it is hard to count the amount of people that think ''VisualNovel/HatofulBoyfriend'' is a dead serious OtomeGame and not an AffectionateParody of them. Bonus points if it's used to show "how [[WidgetSeries weird]] [[UsefulNotes/MisplacedNationalism Japan]] is".

** Renew America's far-right pundit, Austin Miles, [[http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/miles/140709 reported in a column]] that Obama spent his 4th of July of 2014 at a Mosque and invited Muslims to be with him at the White House, as well as saying that Michelle Obama is a transsexual woman originally named "Michael [=LaVaughn=] Robinson", his sources turned out to be a satirical [[http://nationalreport.net/obama-visit-mosque-host-muslim-leaders-july-4th/ article]] of NationalReport and this [[http://www.knowthelies.com/node/8893 joke website]].

* ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'': The show's 10th season has introduced yet ''[[CousinOliver another character]]'', named Chloe, who was written to be a ParodySue as she's blatantly, unrealistically perfect in many ways from knowing 12 languages to having a Nobel Prize. Despite this, she was still given the rights to Timmy's fairies half the time. It was later revealed that she was [[DeconstructedTrope perfect to a fault]] as she often tried so hard to make everything great that she ended up overcompensating and ruining everything instead which led to people ostracizing her. Unfortunately, her sue qualities got played so straight that many people in the show's fandom mistook her for an outright CanonSue and decried her inclusion and how she was able to get fairies despite being "perfect". Later episodes would downplay her sue qualities and show more of her flaws.

* Leo and Max's SpringtimeForHitler gambit in ''Film/TheProducers''; they aimed to produce the biggest flop ever so they could make off with the investment money, so they took in a story glorifying UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler and made it as offensive as they could. Unfortunately, the actor playing Hitler himself was so terrible that the audience assumed that it was a parody, and the show sold out. The director deciding to throw in some catchy musical segments didn't help.

* Website/NotAlwaysRight and other such "true story of human idiocy" collections are ''just'' plausible enough that it's impossible to know for certain how many of their submissions are genuine, though [[http://notalwaysright.com/busted-pipes/2368 at least one]] is a known {{Urban Legend|s}}.

* The ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'' comic "Skippy the Jedi Droid" was written by Creator/PeterDavid as a parody of how other stories tended to infuse [[SmallRoleBigImpact random and irrelevant characters with cosmic-level importance]], by taking the idea to its natural conclusion and declaring that the busted R2 unit in ''Film/ANewHope'' who explodes after being bought was actually a Force-sensitive droid (something near-impossible by the rules of the series), with his malfunction being a deliberate act of self-sacrifice to ensure the safety of the galaxy. Since then, the story's become a perennial fixture of articles and arguments discussing why ''Legends'' was full of absurd nonsense, seemingly unaware of the fact that the story was both satirical and non-canon. It doesn't particularly help that, as silly as Skippy is, it was only a notch or two more absurd than some of the actual cases of ADayInTheLimelight it was parodying (for example, ''Literature/TalesOfTheBountyHunters'' revealing that IG-88 took control of the second Death Star without anyone noticing).

* When ''VideoGame/HeyPikmin'' was first announced, a person decided to make a satirical [[https://www.change.org/p/all-pikmin-fans-around-the-globe-petition-for-nintendo-to-cancel-pikmin-3ds change.org]] petition about trying to get the game (a spin-off released during [[VideoGame/{{Pikmin}} the franchise]]'s ten-year SequelGap between the [[VideoGame/Pikmin3 third]] and [[VideoGame/Pikmin4 fourth]] core games) canceled, in response to legitimate petitions on the site over more hot topic games at the time. Despite the writer going out of his way to take potshots at how pathetic these kinds of petitions are and the people who make them, and while a major part of the fanbase instantly managed to peg it as a satire, ''unfortunately'', there were still a few out there who thought the petition was legitimate, either raging over how stupid it was or legitimately signing it.

* ''WebAnimation/DarkMatter2525'': Many comments on "If Hitler Never Existed" insisted that the world wouldn't be a {{utopia}} if Hitler never existed, to the point where Dark Matter made a comment pointing out that this video was a joke, and it was commenting on people in the present, not people in the past.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' episode "The Secret of Success", Doofenshmirtz holds a telethon to fund his evil schemes. Lawrence, watching from a dentist's office, believes it's "a brilliant work of satire" and declares it his new favorite show.

* {{Creator/Tommy Wiseau}} has asserted that ''Film/TheRoom'' was [[ParodyRetcon meant to be]] a BlackComedy after its widespread derision as a misfired drama.

* When WebVideo/DominicNoble made an AprilFools video comparing ''Film/TheRoom'' to the (non-existent) book that it was based on, the intention was that it would become obvious that he was joking near the end as the plot got more ridiculous and he ended on a clip of him trying to pronounce "Prima Aprilis"[[note]]April Fools in Polish[[/note]], the name of the "author". However, a large number of people didn't realize he was joking until he spelled it out at the start of a much later video.

* Taken to something of a logical extreme in ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'', where ''Webcomic/SweetBroAndHellaJeff'', Dave's StylisticSuck webcomic, is [[http://mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=002226 described as]] "a webcomic ironically maintained through a satirical cipher" with "legions of devoted fans, most of whom are totally convinced" of his sockpuppet persona's sincerity. A bit of meta irony kicks in when you consider that in real life, ''Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff'' actually ''is'' much better known than ''Homestuck'' and ''MSPA'', and genuinely ''does'' have legions of devoted fans (though most of them are well aware of its ironic StylisticSuck value).