<p>In current behavioral debate, fake news is often treated as a static entity—finite in nature, potentially subject to fact-checking, and lacking evolutionary characteristics. We aim to bridge existing domains of behavioral research on fake news by introducing an evolutionary model based on three fundamental mechanisms: variation (what users generate), selection (what users pay attention to), and retention (what users share). This model accounts for the dynamic transformation of non-fake content into fake news, and vice versa.</p>