The 7 greatest Internet hoaxes
A. Isaac 
The unraveling of “Jenny”, the women who so cleverly fake-quit her broker job via dry erase board, took approximately 12 hours. In the iInternet hoax world unfortunately, it doesn’t really compare to some of these whoppers that were both more popular and had more longevity.
7 The Tourist of Death
You’ve probably seen the photo before. A man standing on the top of the World Trade Center before it was hit by the 9/11 planes. It was a shocking photo and from many “personal” accounts, the camera that took the picture was found in the WTC rubble. But after some Internet sleuthing that included, “Hey, that plane is coming from the wrong direction” and “Why is he wearing winter clothes on a relatively warm day” and more importantly “Um, this was made with MS Paint”, the mastermind revealed himself. Meet Hungarian tourist Péter Guzli who was just trying to play a joke on a few friends.
6 The Donald Trump Tip
While I’m sure Donald Trump is a generous man, a $1000 dollar tip on an $82 dollar bill seemed very Mother Theresa-esque of him. Several media outlets ran with the story, including Fox News, but when Donald Trump informed people he wasn’t even in L.A. during that time, people started to wonder. Turns out Derober.com (the same people who own The Chive) were the hoax culprits in an attempt to drum up publicity for their Web site.
5 Bonsai Kitten
Growing a kitten in a bottle seems absurd right? Well, the people at Bonsaikitten.com convinced the world that indeed, placing a kitten in a bottle right after it was born was possible–you could even make it look like an ornament. The hoax was so successful that the FBI investigated the founders of the site to question them about animal cruelty.
4 lonelygirl15
“lonelygirl15″ seemed like a normal 16-year-old girl who just wanted to share the trials and tribulations of an everyday teenager. Then she started talking about strange occult practices. Then her parents disappeared after trying to protect her from the cult’s secret ritual. Her fans were genuinely worried and after awhile it got a little “too real” for people so an L.A. Times reporter started to do some digging. 16-year-old “Bree” turned out to be 19-year-old actress Jessica Rose, an actress hired for the role by an Internet content studio now known as EQAL.
3 Have you seen this man?
In the fall of 2009, a Web site launched with the simple words, “Have you seen this man?” More than 2000 people had seen him in their dreams, but nobody could pinpoint him in their everyday life according to the site. It was a cultural phenomenon. Flyers were even showing up in major cities. The hunt for this elusive man was on. That is until someone realized the owner of the site was also the owner of a guerilla marketing agency in Italy. What they were “marketing”, I still don’t know. Hopefully a tweezer for that unibrow.
2 Justin Bieber has syphilis
Naturally, when a picture of teen heartthrob Justin Bieber and sex tape star Kim Kardashian surfaced, the next question was obvious: “Did they hook up?” Not because Bieber is a womanizer or anything but more so because every single inch of Kardashian’s womanly parts had been on full display for the world to see. Hours later, “Justin Bieber has syphilis” was tops in Google trends and the word around town was that he needed some serious penicillin to quell the outbreak. The folks at 4chan may be immature, but truthfully, it was a fine moment for anti-Biebites around the world.
1 Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake dead
There have been several celebrity death hoaxes over the years — Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Bill Cosby have allegedly died in the last couple months, just to name a few. None however created the hysteria of the “Britney Spears/Justin Timberlake killed in a car accident” rumor perpetuated by radio DJs Kramer and Twitch in Dallas. The hoax caught steam as news agencies reported the story without actual proof. It got so serious that Jive Records, Spears’ and Timberlake’s label, had to issue a statement the following day announcing they were alive and well. For their part in the rumor, Kramer and Twitch were given their walking papers.
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