It's a Fake! — Angry Romulan from Star Trek holding up a small blue cylinder and shouting

It's a Fake!

1998catchphraseclassic

Published September 2, 2026

"It's a fake!" is a catchphrase from a 1998 episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, delivered in a strange hissy voice by Romulan Senator Vreenak after he sniffs out a forged data rod. The odd line drifted through Usenet Trek forums for years before YTMND turned it into one of the site's signature 2005 Star Trek remix loops.

ytmnd memes star trek memes catchphrase memes usenet origin memes audio memes

Overview

"It's a fake!" is the sneering three-word verdict Romulan Senator Vreenak spits at Captain Sisko after inspecting a forged optolythic data rod in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine1. The joke is entirely in the delivery: actor Stephen McHattie hisses the line with a wet, drawn-out sibilance that sounds nothing like normal English, and fans latched onto that weird phonetic quality more than the plot beat itself1.

Online, the phrase works two ways. As text, it is a blunt copypasta reply thrown at anything alleged to be forged, doctored or too good to be true3. As media, it is a soundboard clip pasted over unrelated footage, photoshops and looping animations, with the Vreenak sneer functioning as an all-purpose fake-detector reaction23.

Origin & Background

Platform
Star Trek: DS9 (TV) / Usenet + YTMND (viral spread)
Creator
Stephen McHattie
Date
1998

The line comes from the DS9 episode "In the Pale Moonlight", which first aired on April 15, 19983. In the scene, Vreenak, played by Stephen McHattie, confronts Sisko (Avery Brooks) about a forged data rod meant to drag the Romulans into the Dominion War, then delivers the drawn-out "It's a faaaake!" that fans still quote today1.

Almost immediately, Trek viewers on Usenet groups like alt.tv.star-trek.ds9 began pasting the line as a stock reply to any post that smelled off, and it stayed in rotation on Star Trek boards and chatrooms for years afterward3.

How It Spread

The catchphrase mutated from text into pure remix material in July 2005, when YTMND user IzzyDS uploaded the first Vreenak page pairing the looping GIF with the original audio clip3. It landed inside a small wave of Star Trek YTMNDs alongside Khan! and Picard sites, and the Vreenak loop became one of the format's signature reaction pages3.

In November 2006, the same freeze frame of Vreenak inspecting the rod was picked as the subject of a SomethingAwful photoshop contest, which ran across six pages of edits placing the senator into unrelated scenes and product boxes2. From there the clip spread into YouTube video mashups, where editors cut the "It's a fake!" audio over film trailers, news footage and other Trek scenes4.

Unlike faster-moving 2010s meme cycles, "It's a fake!" spread at a slow, steady pace inside Star Trek fandom rather than blowing up mainstream, and it is still cited as one of the early YTMND-era Trek remixes3.

How to Use This Meme

Typical use is a straight quote reply, "It's a faaake!", posted under anything a user thinks is doctored, staged or a scam. The video-remix version usually drops the Vreenak audio (and often the shot of him holding the rod) over unrelated footage the editor wants to call out as bogus, with the join timed to the hissy "fake" for maximum effect.

Frequently Asked Questions