WASHINGTON — Researchers have discovered that the origin of the “fake news” phenomenon stretches all the way back to 2002, when your friend Dennis McNulty claimed to have played Pokémon Purple.
“Clickbait journalism, Donald Trump railing against the New York Times, Q-Anon… all of this stems from the moment 11-year-old Dennis said he caught a ‘Black Pikachu’ in Pokémon Purple,” explained historian Dr. Clair Blevins. “Journalists didn’t realize, before 2002, that they could just lie and get away with it. Seeing your eyes light up at the possibility that Dennis had an uncle who works at Nintendo and gave Dennis a copy of the unreleased game changed all that. It was the exact origin of made-up inside sources. It was very likely the beginning of the end of all news media. Now every political writer has an ‘uncle’ who works at the White House.”
McNulty, who now works as a content farmer for website Today Always, swears to this day that he really did play Pokémon Purple.
“Look, I don’t care what you think about me, but I’m not a liar. What’s next? You’re gonna claim that my copy of Majora’s Mask I had as a kid wasn’t really haunted?! You know it just stopped being like that because I performed an exorcism on it right before you got to my house!” McNulty said. “There is nothing more important to me than the truth. I don’t have time for this shit, anyway. I have to publish my new article, 37 Times Lady Gaga Accidentally Revealed She Was Secretly a Man.”
Despite McNulty’s insistence, many have criticized him as a result of the findings. President Donald Trump spoke about McNulty and the larger issue of fake news at a recent press conference.
“The lying Dennis media is out to get us all! I knew – I knew all along – from the very beginning – that there was no such thing as a MewThree. It would be too powerful! Too powerful… it’s fake news, folks,” the President explained, desperately taking breaths every few words. “But I will create Pokémon Purple. No one else can do it! I alone can bring you Pokémon Purple. I alone can tell our scientists – our brilliant, beautiful American scientists – to create the powerful MewThree. So we can finally defeat China.”
At press time, in a desperate attempt to bring journalism back to its former glory, Nintendo announced they would finally release a game called Pokémon Purple, in which you can catch a Black Pikachu.
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