Posts matching tags 'hoax'
2008/4/10
Via Crikey, an account of an earlier Olympic torch protest, this one before the Melbourne olympics in 1956:
With this escort around him, the runner made his way through the streets all the way to the Sydney Town Hall. He bounded up the steps and handed the torch to the waiting mayor who graciously accepted it and turned to begin his prepared speech.
Then someone whispered in the mayor’s ear, “That’s not the torch.” Suddenly the mayor realized what he was holding. Held proudly in his hand was not the majestic Olympic flame. Instead he was gripping a wooden chair leg topped by a plum pudding can inside of which a pair of kerosene-soaked underwear was burning with a greasy flame. The mayor looked around for the runner, but the man had already disappeared, melting away into the surrounding crowd.The hoaxer was a veterinary student named Barry Larkin, who (along with eight other students from the University of Sydney) planned the prank to take the piss out of a Nazi-era tradition which they felt was being treated with too much reverence.
Surprisingly, Larkin was treated as a hero; even the rector of the University of Sydney reportedly walked up to him the following day and said "well done, son". If he faced any punishment, it is not mentioned in the article. It's hard to imagine something like this happening these days without universal condemnation from the press and criminal charges, larrikinism being best left to professionals (such as TV celebrities) who can keep it safe for all. Could 1956-era Australia have been, in some ways, less conservative than the present day?
2008/3/5
There are red faces in the Oxfordshire constabulary, after a police officer mistakenly circulated a warning to schools about a made-up drug named "strawberry meth", which led to some schools holding special assemblies. Strawberry meth was apparently meant to be a form of crystal meth flavoured with strawberries, for extra appeal to children, and sold outside schools.
One thing's for sure: today's hoax drugs are more sinister than a decade ago. Back then, all they did was make you perceive a single note as lasting 4 hours, and now they come with the fucking-up power of crystal meth. We live in less innocent, more paranoid times, it seems.
2007/7/31
Fox News has uncovered a sinister hacking group named Anonymous, which destroys peoples' lives for laughs (or LULZ as they put it):
They are hackers on steroids, treating the web like a real life video game. Sacking websites, invading MySpace accounts and disrupting innocent people's lives.
They plastered his profile with gay sex pictures. His girlfriend left him.These "domestic terrorists"' other activities have included threatening to detonate "dirty bombs" in sports stadiums (illustrated with footage of a car bomb, which may or may not have been connected with the group) and invading bookshops with megaphones and telling everyone who dies in the new Harry Potter book (considerately bleeped out by Fox News).
2007/5/17
An email, incorrectly claiming that Apple's iPhone and Leopard had been delayed, wiped US$4bn off the value of the company. Once Apple issued a clarification, stock soon climbed back to most of its original value within about 15 minutes.
I wonder whether whoever sent the email managed to snag some bargain-priced Apple shares.
2005/4/5
What do you know? "Toothing", the alleged British cultural phenomenon where commuters pair up for casual sex using their mobile phones, turned out to be a hoax; or, at least, started off as one; who knows, perhaps someone somewhere did actually get lucky (either that or some disease) by sending address-book entries from their phone on the Tube, as implausible as it may sound. The hoax did take in quite a few news organisations, including the BBC and WIRED.
2004/2/23
Now this takes balls: Oxford engineering student Matthew Richardson was approached to deliver some lectures on economics in China (possibly on account of his having the same name as a US professor of economics); so he bought an A-level textbook, crammed it on the flight there, and blagged it. Until he ran out of material, and did a runner.
The real Prof Matthew Richardson, speaking from the business school at New York University where he is a lecturer in finance, said: "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and it seems as if this young man will go far. I do not know if the Chinese students were expecting me. I feel sorry for them if they feel let down, but there was no real harm done."
(via 1.0)
2003/5/27
Remember the Tunbridge Wells costumed crimefighter? Well, it turns out that was all a hoax. Well, there was a chap in an brown-and-orange superhero costume (a local hairstylist named Matt Lees), but the bits about him rescuing townsfolk in trouble were made up, mailed into newspaper letter pages (where else?) by Lees and two of his friends.
Mr Shaw, a designer in a publishing company, said: "This 'Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells' thing is such a cliche. We decided to see how far we could push it, to write the funniest letters we could."
There was only one thing for it. Mr Lees made a costume that fitted the "witness" descriptions. "The O on the chest was supposed to be a zero, because it was nothing all along," he said.
(via NWD)