poe's law
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.61 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
1
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
name
The observation that, on the Internet, without a clear indication of the author's intent, it is impossible to tell the difference between sincere extremism and a parody of extremism.
name
Alternative letter-case form of Poe's law.
Example Sentences
- "If you accept Poe's Law, you hold that religious believers are indistinguishable from their parodies."
- "But Poe's Law isn't only useful as a defense against pearl-clutching reactions. It's also a diagnosis of exactly how the troll mentality has weakened internet culture. […] But because the internet has changed in innumerable ways since 2005, expanding and accelerating all the while, Poe's Law applies to more and more internet interactions."
- "It's not just digital media tools that amplify the ambivalence of humor online. The familiar combination of context collapse and Poe's Law is equally impactive."
Etymology
Formulated in 2005 by a user named “Nathan Poe” on the website christianforums.com, originally in the context of creationism.