Fanlore:Featured Article Archives/2023: Week 33

Dead Dove: Do Not Eat is a warning or tag that is used and interpreted in multiple different ways in different areas of fandom. The phrase comes from a meme referencing the 2003 Arrested Development episode "Top Banana", in which Michael Bluth opens a paper bag labelled "DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT" and, upon discovering that there is a dead dove inside the bag, says, deadpan, "I don't know what I expected."

The tag was initially proposed in 2015 as a way to indicate that a fanwork depicts "tropes that might be viewed as problematic" without necessarily any subversion or condemnation of those tropes, but confusion over the intended meaning of the tag has led to varied interpretations and usage over the years since it was coined. One common usage is to indicate simply that "this fic is clearly labelled and fully warned for, so if you open it you know what you are getting." More recently, it has also become common to treat "Dead Dove: Do Not Eat" as a content warning in and of itself, indicating that a fanwork contains particularly violent or dark tropes or concepts.

The originally proposed meaning of the tag remains in use alongside the newer interpretations, leading to significant confusion and debate among fan communities.