From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

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Fake means not real. For example, a document or other object created to look like a real object that exists or could exist, or a performance where an event is played, or untrue statements.

Applications include:

• fun, art, use as a toy
  • for example, a film or play shows fake events, where actors show fake emotions, and where fake objects are used
• deception
  • a forgery (a false document or picture)
  • a counterfeit (of an object)
• the same purpose as the real thing

Reasons for using a fake object instead of the real thing include:

• the real thing does not exist, including:
  • a document trying to prove something which is not true
  • a fantasy object
• a fake version of an object may be:
  • more easily available
  • less expensive
  • less dangerous (e.g. a toy weapon, or a weapon prop)
  • less heavy
  • not requiring to kill an animal (meat analogue, imitation fur)
  • legal while the real thing is illegal
  • not requiring a license

There can be several levels of being real or fake. For example, in a work of fiction a character can have a dream or the story may involve counterfeit money (two levels), or a character may dream about counterfeiting (three levels).

See also

• hoax
• replica
• fiction
• fantasy
• virtual reality
• dream
• novel
• film
• hallucination
• delusion
• illusion
• mimic
• fake object - with "object" in the sense of object-oriented programming, used in computer software development and testing