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{{trope}}
{{quote|It proved enormously complex to maintain the continuity and integrity of this large, [[Invented Individual|entirely fictional [spy] network]], and the [[Feed the Mole|information it was providing]]
|https://www.mi5.gov.uk/agent-garbo}}
A lie or deception that takes on a life of its own, spiraling out of the control of the ones who started it and often mutating in the process. What distinguishes a [[Snowball Lie]] from a [[Fawlty Towers Plot]] lie is that it attracts other characters to keep it alive and expand it, either by explicitly furthering the deception for their own purposes or by sincerely buying into it and carrying it on in the honest belief that it is
Usually a Snowball Lie will eventually grow to a point where it will collapse, either under the weight of its internal contradictions or after some insightful person [[Pull the Thread|Pulls The Thread]] on it. Sometimes, though, a perfect Snowball Lie will show no signs of ever stopping, and its creators will find themselves forced to kill
An [[Invented Individual]] is a Snowball Lie based around a fictional person.
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{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* When Hokuto arrives at ''[[Cromartie High School]]'' and finds out his dad doesn't actually run the place, he claims that said dad is in fact the shadow emperor of Japan. So what's Hokuto doing here? Um... his goal is to ''fight'' that evil emperor, of course. So he's planning to fight his own father? Um... yes! The lie snowballs at incredible speed, mostly because Kamiyama and Hayashida believe everything they're told.
* ''[[Paranoia Agent]]'': {{spoiler|The whole plot}}
* ''[[Death Note]]'': The entire series is based on Light Yagami's elaborate, psychopathic plots to deceive police and detective forces that he is ''not'' a serial killer... until {{spoiler|it all blows up in his face, his cover is blown, and he dies.}}
* ''[[Harry Potter and
▲== Fan Fic ==
* ''[[Princess Celestia Hates Tea]]'': Celestia lied to Luna that she enjoyed the Tea Brewer she gifted her with, in order to spare her feelings. The problem? That was a few thousand years ago, and as an immortal [[Physical God]], Celestia has had millenia to continue drinking all the tea her loving subjects have been giving her, even though she still can't stand the stuff. It's safe to say it causes an avalanche instead of a snowball when she reveals she
▲* ''[[Harry Potter and The Methods of Rationality (Fanfic)|Harry Potter and The Methods of Rationality]]'' discusses this in the chapter appropriately titled "[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/65/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality Contagious Lies]".
▲* [[Princess Celestia Hates Tea]]: Celestia lied to Luna that she enjoyed the Tea Brewer she gifted her with, in order to spare her feelings. The problem? That was a few thousand years ago, and as an immortal [[Physical God]], Celestia has had millenia to continue drinking all the tea her loving subjects have been giving her, even though she still can't stand the stuff. It's safe to say it causes an avalanche instead of a snowball when she reveals she doesn not, in fact, enjoy tea.
== Film ==
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* In the obscure 2005 [[Robin Williams]] film ''The Big White'', he plays a man in Alaska with a mentally ill wife and they're on the brink of bankruptcy. He finds a corpse in a dumpster and passes it off as his long-lost brother to get an insurance claim. But he's hounded by an investigator who knows something's up, and he has to pile on lie upon lie. And just when he thinks he's gotten away with it, the two men who dumped the corpse want it back, and the real long-lost brother shows up.
* The mystery product "Vip" in ''Lover Come Back''.
* Rather a nasty example in ''Gossip,'' a guy sees a girl pass out at party when alone with her boyfriend. The boyfriend leaves her to sleep. But the guy suggests to his friends that they should spread the rumor that the boyfriend had sex with her while she was unconscious, to see how far the rumor goes. The rumor goes far enough that she has the boyfriend arrested for rape. Viewers might wonder if the girl couldn't tell the difference, turns out she could, and the guy starting the rumor was in fact {{spoiler|covering up his rape. She was also extremely sensitive to the whole plan because she had been date-raped before, by the guy who started the rumor and raped her again.}}
* The [[Al Pacino]] film ''
* ''Accepted'', about a fake college.
* In the Italian comedy ''Notte prima degli esami'' (The Night Before the Exams), the main characters straight up invent some final exam questions to sell because they need some quick cash. Later, when they try to buy the ''actual'' test questions from some shady characters...if you need me to explain what happens next, then you [[Genre Blindness|obviously haven't read the trope description]].
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* [[George Orwell]]'s ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]'' runs on this trope. Most of recorded history has been replaced by a vast and intricate institutionalized network of Snowball Lies, and there's no way to tell which parts of the record are true and which are entirely made up. What's more, the government [[Retcon|changes the records at will]] to whatever suits their current purposes. And of course, everybody just goes along with it [[Only Sane Man|except for the protagonist.]]
** Orwell used it again in [[Animal Farm]], where the ruling class of the titular farm were pigs. One, Napoleon, had his followers turn on his rival. He then proceeded to sell blatantly false and ever-expanding stories of his rival's duplicity and treachery in order to secure more and more power for himself and his cronies. His rival? Snowball. Any similarities to real persons in certain [[Russian Revolution|socialist revolutions]] is entirely intentional.
* In ''[[Vorkosigan Saga|The Warrior's Apprentice]]'', to help a pilot with some financial troubles Miles Vorkosigan starts a
* In ''[[Dread Empires Fall]]'', a cell of 4 terrorists is trying to look like an entire underground army, so they attribute each of their actions to a different fake unit. Soon enough they see in the news about new attacks by these
* ''The Emperor's New Clothes'' by [[Hans Christian Andersen]].
* At the beginning of one story, [[Ephraim Kishon]] and his wife just want to escape from a boring party. But the host of the party is very helpful and offers to escort them to the place where Kishon supposedly has [[Serious Business]] to do. At the end, he ends up owning 30% of a new factory for washing machines. [[It Makes Sense in Context]].
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== Live Action TV ==
* In the 1980s TV Show ''[[
* In the ''[[Frasier]]'' 4th season episode "The Two Mrs. Cranes", Daphne lies to an old boyfriend who wants to get back with her by pretending to be married to Niles. Things spiral from there, so Frasier ends up being divorced from 'Maris', whom Roz takes the role of when she happens to stop by the apartment. And then Daphne decides that the old boyfriend isn't so bad after all, but Niles isn't keen to give up playing the doting husband, and Roz has also taken a shine to him, which means that the two women spend most of the evening making up ever more ludicrously horrible stories about each other to put the boyfriend off, until Roz ends up being an alcoholic anorexic and Daphne is pregnant. And then to really complicate things, Martin gets involved and to really piss everyone off starts spinning yarns about how he used to be an astronaut. And the boyfriend ''believes every single word they tell him'', no matter how ludicrous, and ends up shooting down Roz and Daphne because he believes them to be utterly horrible women who are stupid enough to shamelessly flirt with him in front of their 'husbands'. And then it's capped with the perfect line from Frasier:
{{quote|
'''Frasier:''' No, the truth is ''we've been lying to you all night''! }}
** One other classic moment occurs at the height of this
* Jeff's wooden leg, among oh so many others (usually involving the same character), in ''[[Coupling]]''.
* In one ''[[Three's Company]]'' episode, Teri doesn't want to have an important man over for dinner, believing that he's sexually interested in her. Jack suggests that she tell him the "little white lie" that she's married. But when that doesn't deter the guy, the "white lie" quickly expands, leading to Jack having to pose as her husband with a broken leg and Janet and Larry pretending to be French people who don't understand a word of English. And ''then'' Jack's [[Girl of the Week]] shows up and he explains it to the man's wife by claiming that his marriage with Teri is on the rocks...
* In the ''[[
** Also, [[Invented Individual|Tuttle.]]
* ''[[The Wire]]'' in its final season featured one of these, specifically, the lie about the {{spoiler|homeless killer}} became so big and involved so many people that any evidence therein needed to be covered up, ruining several careers, and escalating a few others.
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* In a story from ''[[Winnie the Pooh|The Book of Pooh]]'' called "The Rumor Millstone," Rabbit tried to stop Tigger bouncing his vegetables by telling him that he was growing a squash that could sap his bouncing powers. The lie snowballed until several of the characters in the Hundred Acre Wood, including Rabbit, believe that a scary monster is after them.
* Just about every series on Disney Channel in the last five years has had at least one episode that revolves around this.
* An episode of ''[[Big Bang Theory]]'' did this.{{context}} A later episode subverts it. Sheldon, hiding from his [[She Is Not My Girlfriend|girl/friend]], asks Leonard to lie about where he is, with increasing specifications for the amount of detail needed to make the lie convincing. Leonard circumvents the entire plot with, "Sheldon isn't here", which was all the detail needed.
* A convicted child molester on ''[[Breakout Kings]]'' is revealed to be {{spoiler|a victim of this. Only one victim was actually assaulted, and the guilty party was her own father. She was forced into blaming her teacher. The other "victims" were kids caught up in the hysteria.}}
* This is a regular feature of [[As Time Goes By]], particularly in any episode where Jean is trying to avoid becoming the target of her officious and patronising sister-in-law's pity (or intervene in Judith, Sandy and/or Alistair's love lives...). Lionel invariably protests and tries to avoid participation, but if it's a Penny (sister-in-law) [[Lies Snowball]], he will never quite manage to get free of it.
* Sometimes occurs whenever Sheldon is involved in a lie in ''[[Big Bang Theory]]''; not because maintaining the lie actually requires this, but because Sheldon becomes neurotic and ''thinks'' it does. On one memorable occasion, he even brought in someone to stay in their apartment acting as Leonard's [[Invented Individual]] junkie cousin because he thought his original
* In the ''[[Fraggle Rock]]'' episode "Boober's Quiet Day", [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Boober hopes to have a nice quiet day]]. When his friend Tosh asks him for a favor that would ruin his quiet day, he lies that he is going on a trip. Then he has to ''actually'' go on that trip when Mokey asks him to bring something back for her... The lie keeps growing and growing until eventually Boober is forced to pretend to be an Old Gypsy Lady. When the web of lies finally collapses, and the other Fraggles ask Boober why he lied so much, he says "BECAUSE I WANTED TO HAVE A NICE QUIET DAY!" To which Gobo replies... [[We Could Have Avoided All This|"Why didn't you just ask?"]]
== Real Life ==▼
* [[wikipedia:Cottingley fairies|The "Cottingley fairies" case]].▼
* The "crop circles" hoax was a [[Snowball Lie]] that grew so big that even when its authors (two old men from England) tried to kill it, ufologists and other enthusiasts refused to believe them. Of course, they were also imitated by dozens of copycats, hence the excuse that "Well, you might have done ''some'' of them, but what about ''these'' ones?" ▼
** The same goes for things like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. Just like the crop circles, when people came forward to announce that they were involved in the hoaxing, believers accused them of lying to cover up the ''real'' creatures. ▼
* There's also H.L. Mencken's "bathtub hoax", where his bogus history of the bathtub, "A Neglected Anniversary", was believed as truth for decades after it was published in 1917.▼
* ''The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion'', a fraudulent anti-Semitic manifesto about [[Conspiracy Theory|a worldwide Jewish conspiracy]]. It was first used to scapegoat Jews for the monarchists' defeat in the Russo-Japanese war and the Russian Revolution, was infamously used by [[Adolf Hitler]] according to some historians as his justification for his campaign of genocide during [[World War II]], and is still believed to be real by many people even today.▼
* You know that one person in your life who insists on topping every story brought up with something even ''more'' outlandish that happened to her? If your car just got towed, hers rolled off a cliff. If your sister just had twins, her ''cousin'' just had triplets, plus another set of triplets two years earlier. And let's not get started on the stories she comes up with when you mention that your back hurts (her various conditions include sickle-cell anemia, scoliosis, ADD, chimera-twin syndrome, and the inability to go out in full sun).▼
** Why'd I bring that up here? Oh yeah: Miss Manners says that when you have to deal with someone like this, the most useful thing to do is to [[Pull the Thread|play along, earnestly asking for details]] that may eventually show her story to be a [[Snowball Lie]]. Even if you don't believe her, at least now you're both entertained.▼
* Perhaps one of the most tragic and best-known cases of this were the Salem witch trials in colonial America. The witch hunt was started by three girls who claimed to be possessed by demons, and who went into "fits" because of it. When they later confessed to lying about it, however, the trend was so huge and so many people were caught up in such a panicky situation that the people simply refused to believe them, choosing instead to believe that it was the demons within them who were making them "confess" their lies.▼
** In a similar fashion, the so called "Gävle Boy", Johan Johansson Grijs, who was one of the most infamous children involved in the Swedish witch trials. After he had accused his own mother of witchcraft and gotten her executed in his hometown Gävle, he was sent to relatives in Stockholm, where he continued to accuse people and got other children to do the same. This went on for quite some time, until someone realised that he knew a bit too much about witchcraft for being a victim, and he himself was sentenced to death. He panicked and confessed to lying, but was executed for that instead.▼
* The claim that Abner Doubleday invented baseball in Cooperstown, New York in 1839. Doubleday, a military hero, never claimed to have invented baseball, and there's no evidence he'd ever even visited Cooperstown. In fact, the first printed reference to baseball in America [[Older Than They Think|was in 1791]]. In 1908, 15 years after Doubleday died, a commission whose open aim was to prove that baseball was strictly American in origin announced their findings that Doubleday was the inventor. This claim was based the testimony of just one person, an elderly mentally ill man, who would have have been a young boy in 1839. The report was forgotten until the 1930s. Then Major League Baseball kicked of a massive campaign to celebrate the supposed centennial of baseball in 1939, culminating in the opening of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. ▼
* Various child abuse scandals, especially those with supposed Satanic cult connections and multiple alleged perpetrators, result from this: one suspicious parent, teacher, or social worker questions a child (who may or may not be an actual abuse victim) and soon worried parents are questioning their kids and the number of "victims" and "abusers" starts expanding dramatically.▼
== Theater ==
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== Video Games ==
* Thanks to the [[Clap Your Hands If You Believe]] nature of the universe in ''[[Planescape: Torment]],'' a snowball lie can cause quite a lot of unintended consequences, up to and including creating a ''[[Invented Individual|entirely new person]]'' out of an alias the Nameless One uses.
* The ''[[Persona 2]]'' rumor systems can work on the Snowball lie in the same fashion as the ''Planescape'' example.
* In [[Final Fantasy XIII]], {{spoiler|Vanille}} cannot bear to tell the truth to {{spoiler|Fang}} about their Focus, fearing the latter's reaction to {{spoiler|becoming Ragnarok}}. Because of this, {{spoiler|the two of them end up attacking the Bodhum Fal'Cie in an effort to trigger their memories}}, which leads to {{spoiler|Serah and Dajh becoming L'Cie}}. Thus, had {{spoiler|Vanille}} told the truth in the first place, the ''entire plot of the game'' would never have happened.
== Webcomic ==
* [http://www.amazingsuperpowers.com/2011/03/broken-arm/ This] Episode of [[Amazing Super Powers]] certainly qualifies.{{ context}}
== Western Animation ==
* In a classic episode of ''[[The Simpsons]]'', Bart creates a
** Fortunately, Sting (the singer, not the wrestler) was willing to help in the effort to dig Bart out. Because Sting is just that awesome.
{{quote|
'''Marge''': Actually, I don't think I've ever heard Bart play any of your albums...
'''Homer''': Shh! ''Ma-arge,'' he's a good digger! }}
** Another episode of ''[[The Simpsons]]'' revolved around several students discovering Ms. Krabappel and Principal Skinner kissing in a janitor's closet. The rumors about what happened [[Gossip Evolution|get more and more explicit]], until [[The Ditz|Ralph Wiggum]] utters the immortal line:
{{quote|
* ''[[Veggie Tales]]'' has "[[Something Person|Larryboy]] and the Fib From Outer Space", in which Junior Asparagus tries to tell a lie to get himself out of trouble, but the lie gets crazier when those around him press for details. Reflecting the snowballing is an [[Anthropomorphic Personification]] of the lie, the titular Fib, which [[Make My Monster Grow|gets bigger and bigger]].
* An episode of ''[[Dilbert]]'' had the usual team creating a record of a new employee for the purpose of taking the ownership of a cubicle or some such, even making a picture of his face by amalgamating their own. By the end of the episode, everyone thought he was real.
** Not everyone. Catbert did not believe in Todd.
* The ''[[Pepper Ann]]'' episode "Crush + Burn" is all about this trope. Milo asks Pepper Ann to cover him by making up a lie so he can have an excuse to reject Gwen's romantic interest on him. Every time Gwen discovers an inconsistency in the story, Pepper Ann tries to cover it up with more and more lies until it gets out of control and everyone gets tangled up in it.
{{quote|
'''Milo:''' I said "cover", not "create an alternative universe"! }}
* To avoid going to the school dance with Connie, [[Doug]] says that he has to take care of his fictional sick cousin Melvin. This has an immediate backfire (Connie ''immediately'' tells Doug's crush Patty about Melvin), but also turns into a
* ''[[The Powerpuff Girls]]'' takes this on twice. In "A Very Special Blossom," our red-headed heroine steals a quite pricey set of golf clubs to give the Professor as a Father's Day gift. Not only does she lie about how she got them but she tries to frame Mojo Jojo for the theft. "Lying Around The House" has the girls causing an entity to keep growing each time they tell a lie (doing their chores, eating their dinner, etc.) until it grows to an uncontrollable monster size. They are only able to defeat it by telling the truth, thus causing the monster to shrink until it disappears. (Similarly done an an earlier comic book story, issue #21's "Big Fish Story.")
▲== Real Life ==
▲* [[wikipedia:Cottingley fairies|The "Cottingley fairies" case]].
▲* The "crop circles" hoax was a
▲** The same goes for things like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. Just like the crop circles, when people came forward to announce that they were involved in the hoaxing, believers accused them of lying to cover up the ''real'' creatures.
▲* There's also H.L. Mencken's "bathtub hoax", where his bogus history of the bathtub, "A Neglected Anniversary", was believed as truth for decades after it was published in 1917.
▲* ''The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion'', a fraudulent anti-Semitic manifesto about [[Conspiracy Theory|a worldwide Jewish conspiracy]]. It was first used to scapegoat Jews for the monarchists' defeat in the Russo-Japanese war and the Russian Revolution, was infamously used by [[Adolf Hitler]] according to some historians as his justification for his campaign of genocide during [[World War II]], and is still believed to be real by many people even today.
▲* You know that one person in your life who insists on topping every story brought up with something even ''more'' outlandish that happened to her? If your car just got towed, hers rolled off a cliff. If your sister just had twins, her ''cousin'' just had triplets, plus another set of triplets two years earlier. And let's not get started on the stories she comes up with when you mention that your back hurts (her various conditions include sickle-cell anemia, scoliosis, ADD, chimera-twin syndrome, and the inability to go out in full sun).
▲** Why'd I bring that up here? Oh yeah: Miss Manners says that when you have to deal with someone like this, the most useful thing to do is to [[Pull the Thread|play along, earnestly asking for details]] that may eventually show her story to be a
▲* Perhaps one of the most tragic and best-known cases of this were the Salem witch trials in colonial America. The witch hunt was started by three girls who claimed to be possessed by demons, and who went into "fits" because of it. When they later confessed to lying about it, however, the trend was so huge and so many people were caught up in such a panicky situation that the people simply refused to believe them, choosing instead to believe that it was the demons within them who were making them "confess" their lies.
▲** In a similar fashion, the so called "Gävle Boy", Johan Johansson Grijs, who was one of the most infamous children involved in the Swedish witch trials. After he had accused his own mother of witchcraft and gotten her executed in his hometown Gävle, he was sent to relatives in Stockholm, where he continued to accuse people and got other children to do the same. This went on for quite some time, until someone realised that he knew a bit too much about witchcraft for being a victim, and he himself was sentenced to death. He panicked and confessed to lying, but was executed for that instead.
▲* The claim that Abner Doubleday invented baseball in Cooperstown, New York in 1839. Doubleday, a military hero, never claimed to have invented baseball, and there's no evidence he'd ever even visited Cooperstown. In fact, the first printed reference to baseball in America [[Older Than They Think|was in 1791]]. In 1908, 15 years after Doubleday died, a commission whose open aim was to prove that baseball was strictly American in origin announced their findings that Doubleday was the inventor. This claim was based the testimony of just one person, an elderly mentally ill man, who would have have been a young boy in 1839. The report was forgotten until the 1930s. Then Major League Baseball kicked of a massive campaign to celebrate the supposed centennial of baseball in 1939, culminating in the opening of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
▲* Various child abuse scandals, especially those with supposed Satanic cult connections and multiple alleged perpetrators, result from this: one suspicious parent, teacher, or social worker questions a child (who may or may not be an actual abuse victim) and soon worried parents are questioning their kids and the number of "victims" and "abusers" starts expanding dramatically.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Narrative Devices]]
[[Category:Truth and Lies]]
[[Category:
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