This week's re-airing of the fake documentary Mermaids: The Body Found followed by the premier of yet another fake-documentary Mermaids: The New Evidence, has relaunched an internet conversation about whether or not mermaids are real (they are) and whether or not the documentary is "real" (it's not, Animal Planet is fucking with you). But no one seems to be asking the right question: "Is Animal Planet real?" New programming suggests it's not, and might instead be a figment of our cultural imagination. In fact, it's possible that Animal Planet with its shows about fake monsters, naughty animals, and gross bugs has just been trolling us all along. But let's take a look at the evidence:

Exhibit 1: Lost Tapes

Here we have television show about people at Animal Planet who spent a lot of time and money creating shitty CGI versions of your worst nightmares. This is a fake show about fake tapes of fake fucking monsters.

Exhibit 2: Finding Bigfoot

This is a show about hipsters looking for a fake monster based on fake videos that were probably also made by hipsters. This is a show about hipsters looking for hipster relics. And not at all, I might add, about animals.

Exhibit 3: Monsters Inside Me

THIS SHOW IS 100% COMPLETELY FALSE. THERE ARE NO WORMS INSIDE OF YOUR BRAIN, THAT IS JUST YOUR BRAIN. Don't ever watch this show.

Exhibit 4: Cats 101

This is literally a television show about types of house cats.

Exhibit 5: My Cat From Hell

This is literally a television show about irritating house cats.

Exhibit 5a: My Cat From Hell: Kimba's Follow-Up

"On top of everything, Kimba was actually putting a pretty huge dent into Michael and Liz's relationship." (Note: If a fucking HOUSE CAT is terrorizing your marriage, GET RID OF THE CAT. Give it to your mom. Take it back to the shelter. Put it down. Put it in the back yard and let it learn to catch birds. Put it in the freezer.)

Exhibit 6: Dogs 101

See Exhibit 4.

Exhibit 7: Bad Dog!

This show is the same as My Cat From Hell, but with dogs. (And exclamation points! Because even bad dogs are cute and funny.)

Exhibit 8: Too Cute

This is really just a livecam of someone's living room carpet that happens to have a cute baby animal on it.

Conclusion: Animal Planet is not a real television channel. Joke's on us for believing that a network channel completely devoted to things that don't talk could ever keep up with today's reality television market. Dogs don't throw tables at each other. Cats don't have catch phrases. Discovery Communications has been trolling us for years. Proceed accordingly.