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This confusion is in keeping with Poe’s Law, an Internet culture maxim that suggests that parody and sincerity are indistinguishable online, because it’s impossible to know the author’s intent.

To understand how, you have to understand Poe’s Law.

Poe’s law became a reference point for any situation on the Internet where you can’t truly tell someone’s motives or intentions, It explains how “just trolling” has become a powerful cover for unironic expressions of racism or extremist views online, said Ryan Milner, an associate professor at the College of Charleston who studies meme culture, in a 2017 interview with The Washington Post.

Poe’s Law has been made manifest live in events from United States political protests started on Russian computer screens to Fyre Fest, the infamous festival that never happened, “produced” by the grifter Billy McFarland and the rapper Ja Rule.

She pointed to “Poe’s law” in slicing and dicing “misinfo” and “disinfo.”