Wrestling's word for the pretence that the show is real — kayfabe — old carnival slang that reached the internet through 1990s newsgroups and, from around 2016, became a general term for any performance maintained in public, from politics to reality television. The record's entry for the lie everyone agrees to, and for the fans who were most upset when Vince McMahon admitted it in 1989.
The record notes 'breaking kayfabe' now describes a politician being caught being sincere, and that the wrestling fans who lent the word out would like it back.
Kayfabe is not 'fake'. It is the protection of the story. The record notes that wrestling fans have explained this online roughly nine million times and are prepared to do it again.
I remember when Kayfabe was still a niche thing — 1994 — and you could use it without a footnote. The footnote arrived about six weeks later and never left.
It is dead. Say something true about it.
