Between the false myths that everyone believes in and the urban legends that we have heard too much, you have to know how to slalom if you want to avoid making a fool of yourself at the family meal by telling completely false stories. And how can we tell you that we are not helped by Twitter where people often share old rumors that have been denied hundreds of times. So these are the ones you really have to stop believing, because that’s where it gets embarrassing.
1. This video of a lunar eclipse visible from the polar circle for 30 seconds
Posted by the author to raise awareness of fake news, this video showing a “lunar eclipse”, fully visible for 30 seconds from the North Pole, has been liked and shared thousands of times. You have to believe that some people don’t have the perspective necessary to realize that this video is a huge montage, even bigger than the size of my stomach after December’s Eve. It is in fact the creation of Aleksey Patrev, a Ukrainian artist who produces computer-generated image videos.
2. The passage from The Simpsons that predicts the death of Elizabeth II in 2022
We too have been had, but these images “extracted” from an episode of The Simpsons predicting the death of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022 are in fact totally bogus. Big fake. Pure lie. If the Queen did appear in about ten episodes, we never see her dead there. Oupppps.
3. This Iranian father dancing on the grave of his daughter who died in the protests
With the October 2022 protests in Iran against government oppression, this video, first shared on TikTok, was widely seen on Twitter of a man dancing on a grave. For many, it was an Iranian father who had promised a dance to his daughter for her wedding, the latter having been killed in these demonstrations. It turned out that these images came from an Azerbaijani series, “Ata Ocagi” and that they had been used since 2021 to illustrate the consequences of repressions against Kurds or deaths linked to Covid-19.
4. The terrorist planes of September 11 that would be holograms
Since the very existence of Twitter, we have seen lots of conspiracy theorists claiming that the planes crashing into the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001 are only augmented reality, holograms added to television. All this based on fake videos and photomontages that erase the planes themselves. There are some who are determined in their lies anyway.
5. Uyghur calls for help on Shein tags
Yes, SheIn is the WORST invention in history, but no, its employees didn’t write cries for help on the labels. On many photos of labels posted on social networks, we can read the words “Need your help” which would come from Chinese Muslims, the Uyghurs, persecuted in China and exploited by the giant of fast-fashion SheIn. If the words are present on the label, you have to read it in full to understand, since it is actually written “Due to the water saving technology, need your help washing with the soft detergent at the first time to make the goods softer”, or “Due to the use of water-saving technology, we need your help to wash your garment for the first time with a mild detergent, to make the goods softer” .
6. An elephant saving a lion cub
Every year, we see people sharing this photo (very mims) of an elephant carrying on its trunk a lion cub almost dead from fatigue, its mother walking next to it. Sadly, this Disney-worthy story is faaaaausse. First uploaded on April 1, 2018, the image is a photomontage whose versions vary between a mother who can no longer carry her cub and a lion cub who can no longer walk because of the heat. . The faking was also admitted by a young South African photographer, author of the photo, who is always very happy that his joke works so much.
7. The sun that was actually a chorizo
We’re more on a good misunderstood joke than immoral fake news, but the fact remains that the scientist Etienne Klein has pranked some of his followers by sharing on his account a supposed photo of the sun taken with the incredible James Webb telescope , in August 2022. Photo shared very seriously by people captivated by the level of detail of the tool. It was actually a simple slice of good chorizo. The universe is crazy!
8. The people who allegedly set fire to Notre-Dame in 2019
During the appalling fire at Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral in 2019, many people shared photos on Twitter of figures who were on the building at the time of the fire, assuming that they were the drama writers. In the two most shared versions, it was in fact the statue of the Virgin of the trumeau of the portal of the Cloister and a fireman. It’s still stupid to take the Virgin for an arsonist.
9. The bear that gets off a tram in Russia
This photo, shared by many people as if it were normal, in Russia, to come across a polar bear at the exit of the tram (or the bus depending on the version), is in fact completely taken out of context. It’s simply two Greenpeace activists, stashed in a polar bear costume, getting out of a tram in the Czech Republic to denounce the effects of global warming in European capitals in 2014. Must say that it’s well done , we believe it.
10. The fake “Behind the scenes” from the MGM credits
This photo of the supposed lion from the credits of the Metro-Goldwyn-Maye film production company has caused a lot of noise on social networks, because it shows the animal attached to make this video. It’s a fact a ooooooorme photoshop, made from a simple photo of a lion having a scan at the veterinarian (so nothing to do with the intro of MGM). The production box has a few haters, it seems.
11. The child who sleeps on the graves of his parents in Syria
As with the video of the father dancing on his daughter’s grave, this photo is a fake. It was created from scratch for an artistic project unrelated to Syria by a photographer who knew the child and who staged him in front of graves not even belonging to his parents and located in Saudi Arabia . People then hijacked it on social networks and made a very gloomy and tragic story out of it. But what do you want, there are some who are ready to do a lot for the buzz.
12. Venice when it freezes
Seen like that, it looks nice the city with the canals in winter. All the more fun since it is actually a photomontage mixing Venice and Lake Baikal, in Russia, made by an artist. At the same time, it was clearly too good to be true.