Why Did So Many People Believe The President Watches a Gorilla Channel?
âtfw you parody a guy making up shit about Trump but people believe it so you become part of the problem.â

BAILEY T. STEEN | TUESDAY, JANUARY 30, 2018

In light of the rumours and reports coming out of journalist Michael Wolffâs tell-all book, âFire and Fury: Inside the Trump White Houseâ, satirical cartoonist Ben Ward, who often tweets political satire from his account @pixelatedboat, accidentally paved the way for new levels of Poeâs Law never explored.
Poeâs Law, for those who arenât in the know, is based on a 2005 comment written on christianforums.com by an atheist man named Nathan Poe. In the the thread, Poe replied to another user: âWithout a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is uttrerly impossible to parody a Creationist in such a way that someone wonât mistake for the genuine article.â
Enter Wardâs Law, a term Iâm perfectly happy to coin, which seems awful similar to the right-wing meme known as âTrump Derangement Syndromeâ. As staunchly conservative commentators argue, it is impossible to make jokes at the expense of the President Donald J. Trump, without clear indications of satire being at play, for they could be mistaken by the audience for the manâs own serious actions and words.
On Thursday, as articles circulated regarding the authenticity and content of Wolffâs book, Ward took advantage of this media circus show to tweet out a fake excerpt, without those oh-so clear indications, which described this elaborate plan Trumpâs White House officials enacted to appease the new commander-in-chief. Expressing deep frustration that his bedroom television couldnât screen a mysterious âgorilla channelâ where, for 24 hours a day, animals are filmed fighting.
âOn his first night in the White House,â the fictional passage reads, âPresident Trump complained that the TV in his bedroom was broken, because it didnât have âthe gorilla channelâ,â Wardâs fictional excerpt revealed. âTrump seemed to be under the impression that a TV channel existed that screened nothing but gorilla content, 24 hours a day.
To appease Trump, White House staff compiled a number of gorilla documentaries into a makeshift gorilla channel, broadcast into Trumpâs bedroom from a hastily-constructed transmission tower on the South Lawn.
However, Trump was unhappy with the channel they had created, moaning that it was âboringâ because âthe gorillas arenât fighting,ââ the fake excerpt continued. âStaff edited out all the parts of the documentaries where gorillas werenât hitting each other, and at last the president was satisfied. âOn some days heâll watch the gorilla channel for 17 hours straight,â and insider told me. âHe kneels in front of the TV, with his face about four inches from the screen, and says encouraging things to the gorilla, like, âthe way you hit that other gorilla was good.â I think he thinks the gorillas can hear him.â
Aside from the absurdity of the passage, describing the most powerful man in the world as having a symbiotic relationship with ravaged animals on screen for hours on end, chances of it being real immediately rang as false.
Why? Well, multiple Trump associates already told The New York Times that the president spends at least eight hours a day in front of his TV watching the news (often tweeting praise and criticisms towards news programs daily).
For the commander in chief to watch this make-shift âgorilla channelâ for 17 hours a day, which beams signals from some random tower on the south White House lawn to his room, he simply wouldnât have the time to eat, sleep, watch the news, go the bathroom, shit-post on Twitter and actually command the most complex country in human history. Itâs so clearly impossible.
Regardless, earlier that same day, Ward was already making disparaging comments on Twitter towards Wolffâs book. In this image, the cartoonist clearly retitled the book to say:
âPresident Trump Was Eating McNuggets on the Toilet and he Dropped a McNugget in the Toilet and Fished it out and Ate the McNugget: Inside the Trump White House.â
Despite Wardâs rare tweets expressing his own genuine, serious political opinion on the issues, itâs a clear satire account that leans left. And the tiniest bit of research would show serious contradictory facts to Wolffâs fictionalised claim and indications of satire. However, so many important figures, in the media and government, thought it was so real that it became a trending story.
Scott Dworkin, one of those verified lefty journalists who contributes to MSNBC, fell for the Gorilla story in this deleted tweet:
Actor Don Cheadle, among other prominent Twitter activists who can be seen spouting support for #TheResistance, said the story could be real, describing how they got âchillsâ reading the fictionalised days of a âman-baby presidentâ:

Among the most prominent voices was anti-Trump conspiracy theorist, Democratic âstrategic intelligence analystâ Eric Garland, captured by The Hillâs Will Sommersâ before the original tweet was deleted:
As reported by Slate, Ward even had to temporarily change his Twitter display name to âthe gorilla channel thing is a jokeâ just so people would calm down.
He then tweeted a follow up to his original passage saying:
â[That feel when] you parody a guy making up shit about Trump but people believe it so you become part of the problem.â
And heâs right. He has every right to make satire and share his opinion doing so. For journalists and political figures to have such blatant disregard for truth that satire, for even a moment, is taken seriously, forcing me to describe this sort of climate as âpost-truthâ, is a problem. Itâs concerning that Trumpâs resistance is so bad at their only job that they give legitimacy to the presidentâs narrative of âFake Newsâ.
TrigTent in the past has expressed our concern for Americaâs unethical media paving the way for demagogues. Whether you believe in Trumpâs agenda on other issues or not is irrelevant, for the forth estate and Democrats to have constant screw-ups like this is a problem that didnât need to happen.

Thanks for reading!
Bailey T. Steen is a journalist, editor, artist and film critic based in Victoria, Australia, but is also Putinâs Puppet ⢠on occasion.
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Cheers, darlings!! x