• marcos@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Turns out you can’t make a joke so absurd that a dozen trolls won’t pretend to believe on it, some 3 or 4 journalists won’t take it seriously for the clickbait headlines, and 1 crazy idiot won’t actually believe is true.

        • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.net
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          1 year ago

          “Have you also downloaded the classified instruction manual for this tank from Vladimir Putin’s website the War Thunder forums, took a correspondence course in Russian, translated the manual, memorized it, and eaten it? Have you Hank? Putin?”

      • Pons_Aelius@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Same with the modern “The earth is flat” bullshit. It started as a 4chan troll in the early '00s.

        All are a weird corollary of Poe’s Law:

        without a clear indicator of the author’s intent, any parodic or sarcastic expression of extreme views can be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of those views.

        Pons_Aelius’s Corollary to Poe’s Law

        If you post a joke conspiracy theory, some idiot will believe it.

        • Fredselfish@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Yep now both are real conspiracys. I literally met people who believe birds aren’t real. When try explain it was prank they double down. Same for flat earthers.