"It must be true. I read it on the internet." Au contraire, mon frere. Internet hoaxes have been around for as long as the internet itself, and we never run out of people willing to fall for them.
Some are so clever that it's easy to be taken in. Others are so patently ridiculous that you should probably slash your wrists for falling so easily. Here are 10 of the best.
10. Neiman Marcus cookie recipe: This was an e-mail circulated in the early '90s claiming that a woman ended up having to pay $250 for a sweet Neiman Marcus treasure. She decided to take revenge by circulating the cookie recipe across the internet. It's posted on the Neiman Marcus website now. The recipe is really good. As far as I know, anyhow. I'm sure as hell not planning on making them. Takes up valuable beer room in the tummy.
9. Boycott gas companies for one day: Probably by now everyone's gotten this one in e-mail. It's a plea to strike back at oil companies for price gouging by declaring a one-day boycott at the gas pump. Yeah, that'll show them. Because then they won't get all the money you're going to spend filling up ... tomorrow.
8. Bill Gates wants to send you money: You would be paid for every e-mail you forwarded. Grandparents and the mildly retarded fell for this one again and again. Most people forwarded it with a disclaimer saying they figured it was probably fake, but sent it around just in case. Jackasses. Gates himself is reportedly still pissed off about this one, as he sits atop his giant pile of money while wearing his suit made of $100 bills.
7. ILoo: Back in 2003, Microsoft announced it was working on an internet-enabled toilet. It's best not to think about what would happen if you got a BSD while using the thing. Rumor has it the French version runs the Mac OS.
6. Savetoby.com: This started in either 2004 or 2005, when James Mceahly put up a website threatening to kill a rabbit named Toby if he didn't receive $50,000 by June 30, 2005. The date keeps changing: It's currently Nov. 6, 2006. Either he can't catch the damn thing or it's multiplying like crazy.
5. Bonsai kittens: The perpetrators here claimed they were raising cats from birth in Mason jars to sell as pets. In Mason jars. The FBI actually fell for this one. So did People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, but they're insane.
4. Tourist Guy: Soon after 9/11, a picture circulated through e-mail of a guy on top of the World Trade Center. The date stamp was 9/11/01, and in the background a plane was seen hurtling toward him. A badly Photoshopped plane. Fark ran a Photoshop contest to place Tourist Guy at the scene of other disasters in history, many of which you can see at the Tourist of Death website.
3. GI Joe hostage: One of my personal favorites was from February 2005, when someone made up a fake website supposedly showing a U.S. soldier being held hostage. Turns out the "hostage" was a GI Joe doll. There was a picture of him being threatened by someone off-camera pointing his own plastic M16 at him. Several Farkers noticed this, causing the mainstream media to issue retractions a few hours after running the news flash.
2. Dihydrogen monoxide kills: Craig Jackson created a website in 1994 campaigning against dihydrogen monoxide, and it went downhill from there. People are still susceptible to this hoax; not long ago it was added to the agenda for discussion at a city council meeting in Aliso Viejo, California. Reportedly, a paralegal saw some warnings online and became concerned. Penn and Teller did a bit on their show where they tried to get environmentalists to sign a petition outlawing the stuff.
1. Duke Nukem Forever: This game was first announced in 1997. Then its release date was pushed back. Again. And again. 3D Realms Entertainment swears it will deliver this thing eventually. Hopefully the developers are not getting paid by the hour, although if they are, perhaps that's the whole problem right there. When do we stop taking this product seriously? I would argue that nine years is long enough.
There you have it -- the top 10 hoaxes. As is traditional for these things, the best one wasn't ranked No. 1.
By Drew Curtis of Fark.com
via wired.
