From Urban Dictionary:
Quote:
1. the cake is a lie (7385 votes up, 203 votes down)
Roughly translates to "your promised reward is merely a fictitious motivator". Popularized by the game "Portal" (found on Half-Life 2's "Orange Box" game release for PC, X-Box 360, and PS3). During the game, an electronic voice encourages you to solve intricate puzzles using cake as a motivating perk. When you have "broken out" of the game's initial testing phase (from threat of death), you find scrawls on walls of the innards of the testing center warning you that "the cake is a lie".
Employee #1: Yo, Dave, manager says we will probably get a promotion if we meet the sales expectations for this quarter.
Employee #2: Yeah, so, don't get your hopes up on that one, Ed. The cake is a lie.
Employee #1: Really, aw crap.
2. The cake is a lie (1788 votes up, 126 votes down)
Implies that a promised reward for one's work is false, with the one proffering the reward never intending to give it in the first place, possibly because the reward never even existed (see also: "there is no spoon"). This phrase can be used to express grief or frustration regarding any situation where there is an imbalance between effort and reward. This phrase was popularized by the game "Portal" by Valve Software Corporation.
During the game, GlaDOS, an artificially intelligent operating system and the game's passive-aggressive guide, uses the reward of cake as a motivating factor in an attempt to manipulate the player. It is first mentioned during the "impossible puzzle room", where she urges the player to "quit now and cake will be served immediately". In a later stage, the player can access a "hidden" area of the testing chamber to find a previous test participant had scrawled "The cake is a lie!" among other warning messages. Cake continues to remain the promised reward for completing the test and/or obeying GlaDOS, particularly in the final stages of the game. Finally, in the ending song, GlaDOS cheerfully sings about how "there's no sense crying over every mistake, you just keep on trying 'till you run out of cake."
3. the cake is a lie (2059 votes up, 983 votes down)
expression used when something great has been promised from a third party but it ultimately is not so.
(six months prior to Vista release) "Vista will be the greatest operating system ever!"
(three months after Vista release) "The cake is a lie."
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So it could be dontpanic's cake is not a lie (leaving Entourage) or it could be a message to us, as sjarrel hypothesized, that some kind of cake is coming our way. Or it could be totally random.
