The Writer's Barely-Disguised Fetish
Part of a series on Internet Paraphilias. [View Related Entries]
About
The Writer's Barely-Disguised Fetish is a reaction image based on a running gag from the opening credits of the 1980s sitcom Police Squad!. Created by a gimmick Tumblr account, the reaction image has since been used to react to the instances of writers presumably inserting their fetishes into films, shows and video games.
Origin
In the opening credits of the Police Squad! television series, a running gag is a mismatch between the name of the episode read by the narrator and the one that appears on the screen (compilation video shown below).
On November 23rd, 2018, Tumblr[1] gimmick account tonights-episode dedicated to the gag posted an edit reading, "Tonight's episode: the writer's barely-disguised fetish." The post received over 85,000 likes and reblogs in four years (shown below).
Spread
The image has been used as a reaction to instances of video game and TV writers presumably inserting their fetishes into their writing at least since late 2020. For example, on December 13th, 2020, Twitter[2] user @BitchyAmi used it as a reaction to official character art from the mobile video game Granblue Fantasy (shown below, left). On January 21st, Twitter[3] user @seinfelddahog used the phrase to comment on writing in the 2021 Fallout: New Vegas mod in a tweet that gained over 320 retweets and 2,800 likes in two years (shown below, right).
![Seinfelds of the lambs @seinfelddahog Haven't played Fallout Frontier yet but I am absolutely astounded by this one character just being a surrogate for the writers barely-disguised fetishes The last of her spirit broken by the Courier, America became a villing slave to her new master. She did anything asked of her Anything to earn a few drops of affection, anything to keep depression from swallowing her whole. 8:31 AM Jan 21, 2021. Twitter Web App [Speech 100] I promise we'll stay together, but now you're gonna be my little slave girl. Put this collar on. I'm sorry, I was just messing around. ED I'm dreading taking off my boots tonight after the running around we've been doing. Whew, my feet will probably rotting fish to shame. ... America America](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/002/467/565/eeb.jpg "this one character just being a surrogate for the writers barely-disguised fetishes")
In 2022, the reaction image gained more prominence online as it was used to comment on writers presumably inserting their paraphilias into Halo, Rick and Morty and House of the Dragon, with the tweets[4][5][6] going viral (shown below).
Various Examples
Template
Search Interest
External References
[1] Tumblr – tonights-episode
[2] Twitter – @bitchyami
[3] Twitter – @seinfelddahog
[4] Twitter – @Bolverk15
[5] Twitter – @halomancer1
[6] Twitter – @RealYouTubeKids
Related Entries 17 total
Recent Videos
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![Seinfelds of the lambs @seinfelddahog Haven't played Fallout Frontier yet but I am absolutely astounded by this one character just being a surrogate for the writers barely-disguised fetishes The last of her spirit broken by the Courier, America became a villing slave to her new master. She did anything asked of her Anything to earn a few drops of affection, anything to keep depression from swallowing her whole. 8:31 AM Jan 21, 2021. Twitter Web App [Speech 100] I promise we'll stay together, but now you're gonna be my little slave girl. Put this collar on. I'm sorry, I was just messing around. ED I'm dreading taking off my boots tonight after the running around we've been doing. Whew, my feet will probably rotting fish to shame. ... America America](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/list/002/467/565/eeb.jpg "this one character just being a surrogate for the writers barely-disguised fetishes")
Top Comments
Excitebot theLEGO
Oct 28, 2022 at 10:42PM EDT
SardonicRainboom
Feb 19, 2023 at 09:06PM EST in reply to