Flagging a Hoax

A little time back I was discussing hoaxes with another person. I mentioned a famous story about a man who was summoned during a seance who didn’t go back.

This event was ‘documented’ in a letter written to a newsaper in the 19th century.

The man who wouldn’t go back was ‘John Newbegin’.

It seemed clear that the letter was a hoax, just by the name.  Yet people believed it, continued to believe it, even after the letter writer admitted it was a hoax.

The name, to me was a kind of ‘flag’  to alert you that this was a farce.

This had me considering the infamous ‘White House Insider’.  This was written by ‘Ulsterman’; a term for people who come from Northern Ireland.

This whole set of items was fabrication on top of farce and had been done on Triond, (a defunct writing site) as a kind of ‘do one better’ as another writer had made up a story about Johnny Depp, claiming he had committed suicide.

The Depp item was published in 2007…(clearly it’s a hoax) yet the writer got over 2 Million hits.  In one month. And on that site, one gets 1c for every 6 hits.

The Ulsterman posse (for there were about six people) hit upon tearing up Barack Obama because they’d picked up the racist sentiment.

People actually believed ‘The White House Insider’ and there were so many hits that Triond gave the team their own space on their site.  They made a lot of money.

Later down came the site ‘Bubblews’  and I thought, from seeing the name that it would ‘burst’ as it was a ‘bubble’.  I thought it was a joke, but then found it was really site, and the business model was impossible.

I knew it was a scam from day one, and although many people who ‘were always paid!’ dispute, the name alone suggests something strange.

A writing site usually has some kind of writing name.  Something that makes you feel it is legit.  To call a site a Bubble is to wave a flag saying; “Hello!  This is Scam!”

I won’t go into the story, we all know it.

The other day I say a new site called  ‘Tinycent’.  Now why would I join a site with that name?   It is telling me…”Hello! We pay badly if we pay at all!”

If I was going to set up a hoax site I’d call it ‘wooden nickles’ or ‘Fool’s Gold’ or something to announce…”Okay readers, this is hoax and I’m keeping a straight face!”

Which makes sense to me.