Rule 01
We don't put real words in real mouths.
If a politician, a footy coach, or your cousin's husband is quoted by name on this site, those words have to come from a real thing they actually said somewhere public. Composite characters can say whatever we like. Real people get their actual words or none at all.
Rule 02
We don't do deepfakes, and we don't do photos of real people.
Imagery on the site is stylised, illustrative, or a placeholder tile. If we ever use a real photograph of a real person, it is credited and licensed. We are not in the business of generating a picture of the Prime Minister eating a Chiko Roll that he did not, in fact, eat.
Rule 03
Satire is signalled in every direction we can signal it.
The masthead is "The Cooked Guide to What to Watch and What to Drive." Pieces are tagged with their desk — WHEELS, REVIEWS, CULTURE, OPINION, FILED — and reviews land with an explicit star rating. The tagline, the kicker, and the voice are all doing work.
Rule 04
Corrections land at the top of the article, not the bottom.
If we get a fact wrong — a date, a score, a name, a company, a claim we made with confidence we hadn't earned — we mark it CORRECTED at the top of the piece. No silent edits.
Rule 05
If someone we wrote about asks for a review, they get one.
Email desk@brainrot.com.au, tell us who you are and which piece, and a human will read it and come back to you inside 48 hours.