Buzz
At times, stories are printed that are so outlandish, you can’t help but admire the audacity of the person who sent it in...
10. Journalist Tricks Newspapers Into Publishing His Outrageously Fake Diet Study
In early 2015, a scientific study made headlines that seemed almost too good to be true. Dr. Johannes Bohannon from the Institute of Diet and Health claimed that chocolate could actually help with weight loss. The tabloids went into a frenzy. Even well-established outlets like Huffington Post and various morning shows jumped on the story. After all, Dr. Bohannon’s findings were available in scientific journals. They had to be legitimate, right?
Wrong.
In reality, Dr. Bohannon is a journalist with a notable history of tricking careless science writers. Frustrated by how the media would print anything and call it “science,” he set out to expose editors using their own tactics. After creating a fake website for the “Institute of Diet and Health,” Bohannon reached out to some researcher colleagues to fabricate a study with real participants (which later sparked debates over the ethics of the hoax). He then produced pages of fake science claiming that chocolate aids in weight loss. He sent it to a journal infamous for publishing dubious science, and waited. A few weeks later, the media exploded.
This wasn’t Dr. Bohannon’s first run-in with manipulating the medical media. In 2013, he persuaded several scientific journals to publish a paper deliberately filled with errors.
94. Chan Persuades America That Kids Are Inhaling Poop
In 1998, the New York Times reported that street children in Zambia had started inhaling gases from raw sewage (known as 'Jenkem') to get high. By 2007, the supposed trend had reached the United States. In September, the media began to panic. Fox 30 in Florida warned parents to watch out for 'butt hash' abuse. KXAN News in Austin, Texas, cautioned adults about 'funky smells' coming from their children. WSBT in Indiana even suggested parents smell their children’s breath before bed, just in case they’d been inhaling their own waste. Jenkem quickly became the center of a moral panic.
You can probably guess the origin of this story. Jenkem was actually the creation of 4Chan’s infamous /b/ board. After the Zambia story broke, it spread to online forums, where it became the subject of gross-out jokes. Eventually, a user on Totse posted a fake video of himself “trying” Jenkem, which was then shared on 4Chan. They, posing as concerned parents, forwarded the video to high school principals across the US, who in turn contacted the media, who fact-checked it with the old New York Times article and made total fools of themselves.
8. TV Station Wins an Emmy for a Documentary on a Fake Dog Brothel
In 1976, New York’s Village Voice featured one of the most disturbing advertisements ever. Titled “Cathouse for Dogs,” it promised “a tantalizing variety of hot bitches,” including Fifi, the French poodle, and Lady, the Tramp. Alarmed by the idea of a dog brothel opening in the heart of NYC, the media rushed to investigate, filming hours of shocking footage showing dogs being exploited, mating, and even starring in a porno. Local affiliate WABC TV went so far as to produce a documentary on the scandal, earning its producer an Emmy. The outcry was so intense that the Attorney General’s office got involved.
Unfortunately for the Emmy-winning producer, the dog brothel wasn’t exactly what it appeared to be. It was an elaborate hoax created by Joey Skaggs, a conceptual artist known for pranking the media. Before he tricked the Emmys into celebrating a documentary about a dog brothel, Skaggs convinced ABC that he was hiring commandos to 'punish' dieters who got too close to their refrigerators. Later, he got the media riled up about his 'condos for fish.' And the best part? He’s still pulling off these pranks in 2015.
7. The 15-Year-Old Who Became Europe’s Online Soccer Expert
6. The New York Times Is Perplexed by Teenagers (Over and Over Again)
Teenagers are notoriously hard to comprehend. At least, that is, if you're a writer for the New York Times. Despite being one of the most respected newspapers in the world, the NYT seems to struggle in one specific area: understanding youth culture.
In 1992, the paper’s style section published a feature on the rising grunge scene. Stunned by these Seattle kids who were into Nirvana and didn’t want to work, the NYT sent a reporter to dig deeper into this phenomenon. The reporter returned with a list of grunge slang terms, which the paper printed as a glossary—despite the fact that many of the words were clearly, and hilariously, made up.
Among the terms the NYT featured were “Cob Nobbler” (loser), “Wack Slacks” (jeans), and “swingin’ on the flippity-flop” (hanging out). “Bound-and-hagged” was supposed to mean staying home on a Friday night, while a “big bag of bloatation” referred to someone who was drunk. Despite sounding like something out of a Chris Morris sketch, the newspaper didn’t realize it had been pranked for nearly a year.
5. Pornographers Fool CNN Into Promoting Their Latest Video
In 2003, a story with just the right mix of shock value emerged, sending the media into a frenzy. In the Nevada desert near Las Vegas, a company was offering wealthy men the opportunity to hunt seminude women with paintball guns. Dubbed “Bambi” hunts, these experiences cost $1,000 an hour, with the women earning as much as $2,500 if they managed to avoid being hit.
With its overtones of exploitation, misogyny, and sexual violence, the story was too sensational to ignore. FOX, MSNBC, and, more notably, CNN all ran with it, bringing the Bambi hunts into the national spotlight. The Las Vegas prosecutor’s office became involved, and it quickly became a major news story. At that point, it was revealed that the whole saga was merely a marketing stunt to help sell sleazy videos.
The man behind the hunts, Michael Burdick, didn’t have a business license and couldn’t provide any proof that he had ever actually organized a hunt. What he did have, however, was a website selling pornographic videos with storylines that mirrored the Bambi hunt concept. By getting the media to whip itself into a frenzy over the supposed hunts, he saw his website’s popularity soar.
4. Tricksters Deceive Australia’s Media into Running a Ridiculous Hoax Story
In 2000, the documentary Dark Days offered an eye-opening look at the lives of New York City’s 'mole people'—homeless individuals living in the city’s underground tunnels. Two years later, Australian media got their own similar story. Tabloid news outlets Nine Network and Seven Network aired reports about a group of people allegedly living in Melbourne’s storm drains. They called themselves 'dole people' and claimed their main goal was to exploit the welfare system for as much as possible.
If that story sounds a bit off, congratulations: You’re more perceptive than Australia’s media. The day after the reports aired, a group of Melbourne anarchists stepped forward to confess they had made the entire story up. They were so frustrated by how Australian media would publish any nonsense about welfare recipients that they concocted the most absurd tale they could think of and shopped it around to see if anyone would buy it. Despite having no evidence to back up the story, both Seven and Nine ran with it. Nine’s ACA program, in particular, aired a hilariously debunked segment full of the same kind of nonsense the anarchists were satirizing.
3. The Daily Mail Is the World’s Biggest Media Troll
You likely recognize the Daily Mail as a race-baiting tabloid that once showed support for the Nazis. However, it harbors a more hidden identity that it works hard to conceal. The Daily Mail might very well be the most prolific media troll in history.
Thanks to American outlets viewing it as a credible news source, the Daily Mail has been able to convince the media to run more hoax stories than everyone else on this list combined. In 2014, a correspondent based in New York invented a completely fabricated story about Beijing installing massive TV screens so residents, choked by smog, could view fake sunrises. Time, CBS, and the Huffington Post all picked it up, despite it being utter nonsense. In 2012, the Daily Mail concocted another story about a Polish dentist pulling all her boyfriend’s teeth after he cheated on her. This hoax fooled most of the Internet, as well as MSNBC, the LA Times, and the Daily Telegraph. In 2015, the Daily Mail published a tale about a guy on welfare who was too busy working out to find a job. It was later revealed that the man was actually an actor.
If you dig deeper, you’ll uncover even more examples of the Daily Mail flooding the media with fabricated stories. Like the time it tricked Fox News into believing a transgender kid was harassing girls in a school bathroom. Or when it completely fabricated a poll that the Huffington Post swallowed whole. We’re calling it: The Daily Mail is officially the greatest media troll in the world.
1. German Media Gets Tricked Into Promoting An Indie Film
When a story appears on the DPA, you know it has to be legitimate. As the German equivalent of the Associated Press, the DPA enjoys immense respect and is notoriously hard to deceive. That is, unless you know how to work the internet, in which case you can convince DPA that a German rap duo just suicide-bombed a nonexistent town in California.
In 2009, German reporters suddenly received frantic calls from their colleagues in Bluewater, California. Two German rappers, the “Berlin Boys,” had just carried out a suicide attack on American soil, and it was being hailed as the biggest story of the year. The callers directed their German counterparts to official websites for both the Berlin Boys and Bluewater, as well as to local law enforcement. When the Berlin journalists called the listed numbers, they were met with harried American officials confirming the attacks. The story seemed ironclad.
Or so it appeared.
In truth, a small group of filmmakers eager to promote their satirical indie film came up with the brilliant idea of generating a media frenzy to give their project a boost. The websites for Bluewater, U.S. law enforcement, and the Berlin Boys were all cleverly fabricated. The contact numbers listed led callers straight to actors in Berlin using Skype. With their well-orchestrated ruse, they managed to deceive even the highly reputable DPA, giving their film an unexpected and massive surge in publicity.
