Tag: hoax

How Rumors Get Started

The other day I saw something really strange go under my drawbridge. It looked like a sailboat mast, only… there was no sailboat beneath the mast. Maybe a really, REALLY tall periscope? An optical illusion? I’m just going to have to accept the fact that I’ll never know the end of that story. And maybe I need to get more sleep. Or update my eyeglass prescription. Or perhaps, like Scrooge, I was digesting a bit of underdone potato.

And then a friend sent me a link to a website about Willatuk, Seattle’s equivalent of the Loch Ness Monster. Jeez, glad I didn’t know about that before I went kayaking a few weeks ago. I’d have been rather creeped out.

Willatuk

While I always have and always will view stories about sea monsters with a healthy level of skepticism, the Willatuk website did suck me in for a second. Not in terms of believing the creature actually exists, but in terms of believing that other people believed it.

But then a few red flags popped up. First of all, the website mentions a Wonkatilla Tribe, which I’d never heard of, and couldn’t find on line except in relation to this website. It also mentions a tunnel 5 miles beneath the surface of Lake Washington which lets out into Puget Sound, and is supposedly the passage that this creature takes. Uh… Lake Washington is only 214 feet deep, folks.

And one couple supposedly saw Willatuk transiting through the locks. I think the people working the locks would have noticed that. And shut him in. And made a fortune off of him.

Upon further investigation, I discovered that the timeline of Willatuk sightings is a purely fictional creation of the guy who made the film Willatuk: The Legend of Seattle’s Sea Serpent. He also happened to make the website. This kind of gave me a giggle.

But it also irritates me a little, because not everyone will follow through the way I did. So I suspect that we’re now going to hear about the occasional Willatuk sighting, and eventually people will forget that it all started off as a work of fiction, and maybe 200 years from now fiction will be viewed as fact and… well, you know, that’s how rumors get started.

I leave you now with the (really bad) Ballad of Willatuk, which was also created for the movie. Because I love you, dear reader, I actually sat through the movie myself for research purposes, and it’s an hour of my life I’ll never get back and will always regret. No one has even bothered to rate it on the Rotten Tomatoes website, which is kind of a distinction in and of itself.

“Rumors of My Death…”

Have you ever made the mistake of clicking on one of those sponsored ads on Facebook? Someone famous is dead, or has gotten remarried to someone else famous, or is crying, or has ruined his or her reputation, or has had a shocking secret revealed. When you click on it, you get an ad for something completely arbitrary, like shoes or a questionable weight loss product. Lies. Lies. Pure lies. I can’t believe that any website would be a party to that.

I’m also amazed that advertisers think this is a good idea. I mean, yes, you got me to click. Yes, I visited the site. But did I buy anything? No. I just got pissed off and left and learned my lesson. I’ll never click on one of those things again, and I’d rather die than give those people any of my hard-earned money. It doesn’t pay to infuriate and manipulate your customer base.

Or maybe it does, because I don’t see these ads dying off as quickly as they seem to want to kill off famous people. In fact, they seem to be proliferating like rodents. Please don’t encourage them, folks. We deserve better.

A delightful response to the recent internet ad hoax that implied that Betty White was dead.
A delightful response to the recent internet ad hoax that implied that Betty White was dead.

The Nullarbor Nymph

It’s funny what you can come across on the internet when you go from link to link, allowing the cyber highway to take you where it will. It’s even funnier, apparently, what capers you can come up with when you are sitting in a hotel bar in a little town, population 8, in the back of beyond in Australia. And it just adds evidence to my theory that people will believe just about anything.

Hence, around Christmas, 1971, the Nullarbor Nymph was born. The press were told that several kangaroo hunters had seen a feral blonde woman running with the kangaroos, wearing next to nothing except some strategically placed kangaroo skins. It was a slow news week. The press ate it up.

[Image credit: abc.net.au}
[Image credit: abc.net.au}

Before they knew it, the little town of Eucla was besieged by both the international press and a swarm of tourists, all hoping to get a glimpse of this woman. Business had never been better! The glimpses were provided. Footprints. Grainy photographs. A girl running across the road just far enough away to be unidentifiable, but just close enough to be tantalizing. A potential campsite. People were entranced.

Far too soon, one of the hunters was in the bar with a tongue loosened by alcohol, and he unfortunately revealed the hoax. I say it’s unfortunate because the tourism potential for this story could have rivaled that of the Loch Ness Monster. Still, it is considered one of the best hoaxes in Australian history.

There are still postcards floating about, and statues, and in recent years, even a low budget movie. And I suspect that people still sit at the bar in Eucla and talk about the nymph. Their population has grown to 86 now. And they have to talk about something, don’t they?

The original nymph, Geneice Scott, standing in front of a nymph statue in Adelaide in 2007. [Image crecit: perthnow.com.au]
The original nymph, Geneice Scott, standing in front of a nymph statue in Adelaide in 2007. [Image crecit: perthnow.com.au]

Political Pomposity

Well, it’s official. Global warming is not a hoax. So says the senate. So say we all. What a relief. Before they made their pronouncement, none of us could be sure. Pffft.

An even bigger relief (not) is that they voted that human activity has not impacted climate change. Yay! We can all keep our SUVs!

These people are supposed to be our leaders. And yet they’re way behind the rest of us. By about 100 years. History will not look kindly upon them. In fact, they’ll be bitterly laughed at by our progeny.

And here’s a good question: What makes the senate think they are so important that they even have the right to be voting on such topics? Next they’ll be declaring that the world isn’t flat after all, and that the earth, in fact, does revolve around the sun. Politicians, please don’t think that your petty pronouncements actually impact the facts in any way, shape, or form. You’re not that special.

A friend recently reminded me of the Indiana Pi Bill. In 1897 the august politicians of that great state attempted to introduce legislation that would, among other things, declare that the value of pi was 3.2. What an embarrassment to the human race. And what a monumental waste of time.

It just makes you want to crawl into bed with a pint of Häagen-Dazs.

fetal-position

[Image credit: hidden-scars.com]

Taking the Willy Pepper Challenge

Blogging is challenging sometimes. So is nature. So when you combine blogging with nature, you really come up against it, so to speak.

The other day I came across the picture below and after making sure it wasn’t some cruel hoax, my first thought, as is often the case these days, is that this would make excellent blog fodder!

Then I got all cocky. (Sorry. I just had to.) I decided to challenge other bloggers to write about the Willy Pepper, to see what they could come up with. (The puns just keep on coming. Oh God. There’s another one. Oh…)

So, the upshot is (Jeez…) I don’t really have much to say about this derivative veggie other than a few words of advice. It should only be eaten in moderation, or you might get burned. 

willy pepper

It’s Sunday. I get it.

Hardly anyone reads this blog on Sunday. I don’t take it personally. People have lives, after all. Either they’re busy recovering from Saturday night, or they are engaged in spiritual pursuits, or this is the day to go over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house. So I hereby give you permission to take the day off.

I hope you’ll forgive me for doing the same. Instead of writing something myself today, I thought you’d enjoy a little comic relief in the form of a heartfelt warning straight from my silly yet creative boyfriend’s Facebook page. Take heed. The life you save may be your cat’s.

kitten chick

So, you like Genetically Modifed Organisms ?

Biopharmagenica Inc. has just announced the successful insertion of a tiger gene into young chicks that make them every bit as dangerous as their new-found cousins. In controlled experiments, these “chigers”, as they are now called, viciously attacked young kittens, who were otherwise bound for Facebook fame, and ate them.

Researchers called the experiment a success, noting that the feral cat population is out of control in many urban areas. Auditors report that several of these chigers escaped from their cages by chewing through the locks. Most were recovered.