Monkeys paw = you get what you asked for but it takes a nasty path to get there. Example from the OG story, the parents ask for money, then their son dies, and they get the insurance money.

Genie = chooses to ignore the spirit of the wish and gives you something that technically meets the criteria. Ex: you ask for a “hot chick”, and get a boiling hot baby chicken.

You can try to work around the genie’s trickery with more and more precise wording till there isn’t any ambiguity. The monkey will fuck you over anyway, because fuck you, that’s why.

99.99% of the comments on r/monkeyspaw are just granting wishes like they’re genies and not like they’re a monkey’s paw, and it rubs me the wrong way.