Jordan Liles
August 31, 2023
2 min read
On Aug. 28, 2023, a user managing a Facebook page named America – Love It Or Leave It posted an article from the Dunning-Kruger Times website, which showed the headline, “Whoopi Goldberg Voted ‘Most Hated Person in Hollywood’ By Her Own Peers.”
The article was originally published on May 30 and began as follows:
Whoopi Goldberg was once one of Hollywood’s most beloved personalities. In her heyday, she did films like “The Color Purple,” and “Ghost.” She had a recurring role on Star Trek and she did standup for Jerry Lewis every year.
Then it happened. She took a job on “The View,” and everything went downhill. So far that she was recently voted “The most disliked person in Hollywood” by her own peers.
“They have a hard time finding guests to come on the show,” said former Producer Joe Barron, “they have to beg people who are in town filming because nobody who lives here will give them the time of day.”
The poll was first published in a private journal sent to the Screen Actors’ Guild members but then went public on the internet, where it now lives in infamy. Altogether, 82 percent of respondents voted for Goldberg, listing her “nasty disposition” as the cause.
However, this story was not a factual recounting of real-life events. The Facebook page named America – Love It Or Leave It and the Dunning-Kruger Times are both under the umbrella of America’s Last Line of Defense, a network of content that’s described on the Times’ website as containing “parody, satire, and tomfoolery.”
A search of Facebook for the headline of the article showed a number of users apparently believing that Goldberg truly had been voted as the “most hated” or “most disliked” person in Hollywood, even though it was all made up.
For background, here is why we sometimes write about satire/humor.
Sources:
Mikkelson, David. “Why We Include Humor and Satire in Snopes.Com.” Snopes, 15 Aug. 2019,
