One possible reason is that highlighting funny or bad examples of taxpayer-funded research is valuable political fodder [1]. Plus, at least one wing of American

One possible reason is that highlighting funny or bad examples of taxpayer-funded research is valuable political fodder [1]. Plus, at least one wing of American politics is extremely against publicly funded stuff in general. Although I was happy to just discover that there's an apparently bipartisan "Golden Goose" award given annually to government-funded research that sounds silly but has proven to have meaningful applications [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Fleece_Award https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Fleece_Award [2] https://www.goldengooseaward.org/history https://www.goldengooseaward.org/history