History Main / Kayfabe

* This is often the reality of any religious family with non-religious members during religious holidays. Many non-religious people still elect to "celebrate" religious holidays, that is, they use their days off to visit their family and spend some time together. They know this will make their religious family happy, so they put on a kayfabe: sure, everyone knows they are not religious and would not actually celebrate if it wasn't for their family, but explicitly bringing that topic up is faux pas, and as long as noone breaks the kayfabe, the religious family may harmlessly live through their idea of perfect holidays.

* In general, {{Fanon}} wikis like Website/{{Fantendo}} or Website/ClubPenguinFanon often require at least a smattering of this for most if not all of their pages to look decent, structuring articles as if the fictional releases in question exist in the real world. However, most sensible fanon wikis will acknowledge that ThisIsAWorkOfFiction to prevent confusion and other potential issues from taking the kayfabe too far.

* [[http://www.modelmayhem.com/lilymay Lily May]], from [[RealJokeName Mold]], North Wales, United Kingdom is a model and [[UnusualEuphemism adult actor]], but the MILF persona she portrays is very ''clearly'' a persona in the same way as wrestling is stage-managed, but [[LoonyFan some fans on Twitter do not realize this]]. Only a few people know it is kayfabe and Lily May's real persona is never or rarely mentioned, if ever, in public. The AmbiguouslyBi nature portrayed on her Website/{{Twitter}} page is also kayfabe too, although [[WordOfGod she has stated she is bisexual in]] RealLife. The [[StacysMom MILF persona is not real, despite what fans think]]. This borders on AlterEgoActing.

* Creator/AndrewDiceClay's character of "The Diceman" was a DeconstructiveParody of the GreaserDelinquents frequently found throughout UsefulNotes/TheFifties, especially Arthur "The Fonz" Fonzarelli from ''Series/HappyDays''. The Diceman played all of the stereotypes held during the Fifties for DeliberateValuesDissonance; Diceman was foul-mouthed, racist, homophobic, and ''especially'' sexist, seeing women as little more than ways to get a tally on a score card. However, there was long-standing confusion as to [[LostInCharacter whether the things that The Diceman said were what Clay actually believed]], or if [[MeanCharacterNiceActor this really was just all an act]]. This confusion was not helped by Clay's commitment to kayfabe, as he insisted on staying in-character every time he appeared on TV, even for talk shows and interviews. This ended up killing Clay's career, as he developed a MisaimedFandom of people who missed the fact that The Diceman was a parody, taking the sexist and racist things he said at face value and applauding it.

In all cases of kayfabe being used, the fact that what's being shown isn't really what's going on is obvious to anyone who looks at it. But the WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief is understood by everyone involved for the sake of enjoying the media. Telling the average fan that wrestling is "fake", or that Franchise/TheMuppets aren't real actors, or that their favorite VirtualYoutuber is not a cute anime character but a person using motion-capture software, will just make you sound stupid - [[NeverHeardThatOneBefore you're not the first person to say that]], and everyone's well-aware by now. But no matter what you say, the fan still likes it. They're participating in the fiction because they want to enjoy it or believe in it.

* Many daily GameShows pretend that they filmed one episode per day (often referring to the projected air date as if it was "today"). In reality, they generally film one week's worth of shows in a single day (contestants and panelists bring multiple outfits, changing between shows). A contestant who will "come back tomorrow" only has a short break; one who will "come back next week" may actually return for filming the next day, next week, or even months later. (This was more of [[TheArtifact an artifact]] from when everything was live as opposed to tape; Creator/JackBarry asked this on every show he hosted.)

* In TheFifties, {{Game Show}}s (then known as quiz shows) were [[ExecutiveMeddling rigged by their producers]] in order to create a more compelling product that people would want to watch and advertisers would want to sponsor, as some of the earliest shows saw the contestants get tripped up by simple questions and embarrass themselves. The resulting scandal that erupted when the rigging was exposed in 1958 led to [[HauledBeforeASenateSubcommittee Congressional hearings]], new laws being passed to ban such rigging, and game shows [[GenreKiller vanishing from the airwaves]] for over a decade. Only in TheSeventies after sufficient time had passed did they return, and these shows had lower prizes and different formats that focused more on word games and puzzles than general knowledge.

Naturally, there had always been skeptics that denied pro wrestling's legitimacy from the beginning [[note]]A court case in the 1930s revealed the inner workings of pro wresting in the court transcripts and ''Film/ShadowOfTheThinMan'' cracked jokes about the pretense as early as 1941, not to mention that ''WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones'' had Fred Flintstone laugh at the idea that wrestling was real in their ProWrestlingEpisode (first aired in 1963)[[/note]], but fans widely started to figure out the truth in the '70s. And once Wrestling/VinceMcMahon[='=]s [[Wrestling/{{WWE}} World Wrestling Federation]] rose to prominence in the '80s, the secret was out for any but the most die-hard fans. And even they finally got it in the '90s, when [=McMahon=] himself revealed it on ''[[Wrestling/WWERaw Monday Night RAW]]''. In spite of this, WWE had a massive period of success with its Wrestling/AttitudeEra from 1997 to 2001 when ''RAW'' became one of the most popular shows on television. How were so many people fooled? The simple answer is that they weren't fooled at all; any one of those millions of fans could tell you that it was all staged, but they still enjoyed it.\\\

* ''VideoGame/CounterStrike'' games generally pit two opposing factions in a staged map per event, with them basing off some real-life organizations and even having realistically-modelled guns. Despite being a FirstPersonShooter example of this trope, their outcome is in the players' hands. In some matches, the Counter-Terrorists lampshade this.

* ''VideoGame/CounterStrike'' games generally pit two opposing factions in a staged map per event, with them basing off some real-life organizations and even having realistically-modelled guns. Despite being a FirstPersonShooter example of this trope, their outcome is in the players' hands.