The Writer's Barely-Disguised Fetish

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).

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