Poe's law is an
adage
A proverb (from ) or an adage is a simple, traditional saying that expresses a perceived truth based on common sense or experience. Proverbs are often metaphorical and are an example of formulaic speech, formulaic language. A proverbial phrase ...
of
Internet culture
Internet culture refers to culture developed and maintained among frequent and active users of the Internet (also known as netizens) who primarily communicate with one another as members of online communities; that is, a culture whose influence ...
which says that, without a clear indicator of the author's intent, any
parodic
A parody is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satire, satirical or irony, ironic imitation. Often its subject is an Originality, original work or some aspect of it (theme/content, author, style, e ...
or
sarcastic
Sarcasm is the caustic use of words, often in a humorous way, to mock someone or something. Sarcasm may employ ambivalence, although it is not necessarily ironic. Most noticeable in spoken word, sarcasm is mainly distinguished by the inflectio ...
expression of
extreme views can be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of those views.
Origin
Poe's law is based on a comment written by Nathan Poe in 2005 on christianforums.com, an
Internet forum on
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...
. The message was posted during a debate on
creationism
Creationism is the faith, religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of Creation myth, divine creation, and is often Pseudoscience, pseudoscientific.#Gunn 2004, Gun ...
, where a previous poster had remarked to another user: "Good thing you included the
winky. Otherwise people might think you are serious".
The reply by Nathan Poe read:
The original statement of Poe's law referred specifically to creationism, but it has since been generalized to apply to any kind of
fundamentalism
Fundamentalism is a tendency among certain groups and individuals that are characterized by the application of a strict literal interpretation to scriptures, dogmas, or ideologies, along with a strong belief in the importance of distinguis ...
or
extremism
Extremism is "the quality or state of being extreme" or "the advocacy of extreme measures or views". The term is primarily used in a political or religious sense to refer to an ideology that is considered (by the speaker or by some implied sha ...
.
Its original concept was that online parodies or sarcasm on religious views are indistinguishable from sincere expressions of religious views.
In part, Poe was simply reiterating common advice about the need to clearly mark online sarcasm or parody, otherwise it would be interpreted as the real thing
or used by
online trolls,
extremists, and fundamentalists as sincere expressions of their authors, particularly if they match their own views.
Some abuse the law by publishing extremism or defamation without a smiley or
other indication of satire, and if there is too much criticism towards it, reply that it was only an irony. As early as 1983, Jerry Schwarz, in a post on
Usenet
Usenet (), a portmanteau of User's Network, is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose UUCP, Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Elli ...
, wrote:
In 2017, ''
Wired
Wired may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Music
* ''Wired'' (Jeff Beck album), 1976
* ''Wired'' (Hugh Cornwell album), 1993
* ''Wired'' (Mallory Knox album), 2017
* "Wired", a song by Prism from their album '' Beat Street''
* "Wired ...
'' published an article calling Poe's Law "2017's Most Important Internet Phenomenon", and wrote that "Poe's Law applies to more and more internet interactions." The article gave examples of cases such as on
4chan
4chan is an anonymous English-language imageboard website. Launched by Christopher "moot" Poole in October 2003, the site hosts boards dedicated to a wide variety of topics, from video games and television to literature, cooking, weapons, mu ...
forums with the usage of the
OK gesture as a white power symbol and the
Trump administration Presidency of Donald Trump may refer to:
* First presidency of Donald Trump, the United States presidential administration from 2017 to 2021
* Second presidency of Donald Trump, the United States presidential administration since 2025
See also
* ...
where there were deliberate ambiguities over whether something was serious or intended as a parody, where people were using Poe's law as "a refuge" to camouflage beliefs that would otherwise be considered unacceptable.
Some treat Poe's law as part of contemporary
kitsch culture;
another view maintains that Poe's law could lead to
nihilism
Nihilism () encompasses various views that reject certain aspects of existence. There have been different nihilist positions, including the views that Existential nihilism, life is meaningless, that Moral nihilism, moral values are baseless, and ...
, a situation where nothing matters and everything is a joke.
See also
*
Clarke's third law
*
Godwin's law
*
Irony punctuation
Irony punctuation is any form of notation proposed or used to denote irony or sarcasm in written text. Written text, in English and other languages, lacks a standard way to mark irony, and several forms of punctuation have been proposed to fi ...
*
List of eponymous laws
This list of eponymous laws provides links to articles on laws, principles, adages, and other succinct observations or predictions named after a person. In some cases the person named has coined the law – such as Parkinson's law. In others, ...
*
Post-irony
Post-irony (from Latin 'after' and Ancient Greek ' 'dissimulation, feigned ignorance') is a term used to denote a state in which earnest and ironic intents become muddled. It may less commonly refer to its converse: a return from irony to earnest ...
*
Tone indicator
A tone indicator or tone tag is a symbol attached to a sentence or message sent in a textual form, such as over the internet, to explicitly state the intonation or intent of the message, especially when it may be otherwise ambiguous. Tone indica ...
References
External links
{{wiktionary, Poe's law
How to Tell a Joke on the Internet ''The Atlantic''
2005 neologisms
Adages
Eponyms
Internet terminology
Political satire
Christianity and society