Internet Idiots Fall For Fake Trump-Gorilla Story

We now have unequivocal proof that Trump Derangement Syndrome is a real thing. The term began as a way to identify Trump’s biggest fanboys, but after winning the election, it morphed into a description of his opponents. If you have Trump Derangement Syndrome, it means that you are willing to believe unimpeachably ridiculous things simply because they are tied to our manbaby-in-chief. While he certainly has shattered some political norms that should force all of us to question what is possible, he still is constrained by the limits of reality, and some liberals have decided to vacate reality altogether in the wake of Trump’s election. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I present to you example A:

Wow, this extract from Wolff’s book is a shocking insight into Trump’s mind: pic.twitter.com/1ZecclggSa

— the gorilla channel thing is a joke (@pixelatedboat) January 5, 2018

Pixelated boat is a parody account who always posts parodies like this when big political books come out, and this was their joke about Fire and Fury—the book that came out today which led to the breakup between Trump and Steve Bannon. One glance at this account proves its unseriousness, as their “excerpt” from Hillary Clinton’s book demonstrates.

I’m reading Hillary’s book and it gives me a new appreciation of how hard she fought to win the election: pic.twitter.com/l7ISDSmuTf

— the gorilla channel thing is a joke (@pixelatedboat) September 5, 2017

No one at the time believed that to be a real portion of Hillary’s book, yet a man who has never demonstrated an interest in any creature other than himself all of a sudden is riveted by gorillas, and spends up to 17 hours straight watching them? Are you serious? Come on, folks.

The only thing better than believing in gorilla channel is knowing it’s fake, but was actually planted in the Wolff book to discredit it pic.twitter.com/WYJzkBhbgr

— Will Sommer (@willsommer) January 5, 2018

Liberals aren’t the only ones falling for gorilla channel pic.twitter.com/cxGvlhCnt6

— Will Sommer (@willsommer) January 5, 2018

Don’t tweet screenshots of fake text (of book excerpts, court transcripts, etc) even as a joke.

You’re making things worse.

The jokes just don’t work in a partisan-echo-chamber-feed world where everything is divorced from context and authorship.

Also they’re not funny

— Farhad Manjoo (feat. Drake) (@fmanjoo) January 5, 2018

I really like Farhad Manjoo, and think he’s one of the most thoughtful and informative tech columnists out there, but he’s wrong on this topic. If the anecdote shared by pixelated boat was Trump watching recaps of himself 17 hours a day, it would be believable—but our president being obsessed with gorillas is so patently ridiculous that I’m in shock that I’m actually writing this column. Do better liberals. Trump Derangement Syndrome is real, and we all have it to some degree. It’s on us to fight back against our own stupidity.

Jacob Weindling is a staff writer for Paste politics. Follow him on Twitter at @Jakeweindling.