I ever so often skim over a forum or two, and many times the word 'hoax' comes up when referring to Genpets. Which I admit, I find amusing. Hoax, it would be if it sold something. But it does not, the word you’re looking for, if not art, is ‘spoof’ or 'satire', even 'parody' (if the intent was humour).

The spirit of art is to create an illusion. To call Genpets a hoax, would be like looking at paintings from a few hundred years ago and calling them a hoax, as they depicted people, that weren't actually there. Oh wait... people did say that. Calling something a hoax, as virgil wong pointed out to me in a recent email "also makes it sound purely malicious -- as opposed to an honest, humorous, or creative investigation of sometimes absurd possibilities".

Those paintings I speak of, that look pretty now, were also many times highly charged with political discourse, depending on who was standing in the painting, and where.

Hence we have politically charged art, whether it simply looks pretty to you now from the standpoint of a modern viewer.

So I find it amusing that the same thing still comes up now, art is here to push boundaries, but when it does, people get a little edgy. History does repeat itself. But that tells me I'm on the right track.

I also have to question why TV, film, and books can be regarded as forms of entertainment but art cannot. Perhaps it just hasn’t been done enough and it’s time to break that misconception?

(ps, thanks SJW on I-am bored. I noticed that). and Thanks to Snopes for doing such a nice writeup. (link)

Feel free to tell me I’m wrong, that’s what the comment system is there for.