Thursday, January 21, 2016

Indistinguishable from Reality

Poe's Law, coined back in 2005, indicates that parodies of extreme views, without a clear indicator of satire, will be mistaken easily for actual extreme views. Several sites, from Landover Baptist Church to The Onion and its gloriously relevant sister site Clickhole, have made a name for themselves in posting news stories that others have taken and run with as absolute proof for whatever argument they've wanted to push. It's become a cottage industry for giving people enough rope to hang themselves, as well as countless hours of entertainment.

In the inverse of the law, extreme views can easily become indistinguishable from satire or parody.

For example
It is with this, today, that I bring you a glorious piece of... I honestly can't tell. It might be satire. It might not be. Given that MTV's YouTube channel also houses the Problematic Laci Green's Braless series, it's more than likely that they're being quite sincere about this. Just see it for yourselves.



I really have nothing else to add to this discussion.

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