4 B.S. News Stories That Fooled Your Facebook Friends
We have some good news and bad news, Internet: The good news is that April Fool's Day is over, so you don't have to be on the lookout for hilariously fake stories being passed off as truth. The bad news is that (as we've established over and over) for the media every day is April Fool's Day now, so forget what we said about not being on the lookout -- or just let us pick out the latest viral turds for you:
Nope, a Teenager Didn't Save the Government $400 Million by Changing Fonts
Every now and then the world is blessed with a viral headline so nonsensical that it sounds like the dying words of a stroke victim. Such is the case with this completely unquestioned story being passed from CNN to Fox, Huffington Post, and CBS:
"Government to teen: If you say Comic Sans, you're going to Gitmo."
Apparently if the government switched their font type from Times New Roman to Garamond, they could save a fortune on printing ink costs. It's that simple! In fact, why haven't they even considered it before now?
Maybe because the government doesn't pay for ink -- it mostly pays per printed page, so a two-word "Fuck you" memo to Putin costs the same to taxpayers as a page full of One Direction lyrics. Even ignoring that, a lot of government documents are printed with lasers, and even ignoring that, Garamond is a smaller and therefore less legible font, and if you enlarge it to the same size as Times New Roman, it uses up the same amount of ink. But other than that, this story is completely legit.
Bradley Cooper Is Not Going to Be the Next Indiana Jones
From the increasingly long list of headlines that make us go "At least it's not Shia LaBeouf":
Yes, the guy from The Hangover is to lead an Indiana Jones reboot! According to the various nerd blogs reporting it, Shawshank's own Frank Darabont has pitched a draft that would reboot the franchise with Bradley Cooper as the frontrunner choice to replace Harrison Ford. This scoop is so ahead of the news, in fact, that even Darabont himself and producer Frank Marshall had no friggin' clue that such a reboot exists.
"Oh yeah? Well how do you explain this high-quality screenshot we found?"
At this point it shouldn't surprise you that the story comes from Latino Review -- a rumor site that has as much credibility in the movie business as a 17-year-old concessionist. Looks like we're back to praying quietly for Harrison Ford to move on before they try to sell us Indiana Jones and the Kung Fu Mummies from Space or something in 2016.
Come On, Guys ... Coffee Smoking Isn't a New Teen Trend
"Your teen may be in danger" stories are the bread and butter of local news stations everywhere, but what happens when you run out of things to scare parents with? Easy: Go on YouTube, find two or more videos of teens doing the same dumb thing, and call it a trend. Case in point:
"Next up: Are teens drinking telephones? Yes. Definitely."
Meanwhile, Gawker seemed skeptical, but still gave us this headline:
"Smart Reporters Reportedly Blowing Smoke for the Smug High"
Other outlets like the Blaze, Live Science, and of course various local news sites have been cashing in the hits for a story that comes down to a single local news article that cites a couple YouTube videos and (we're quoting here) "doctors" saying that coffee smoking has spiked. What doctors? How much did it spike? The news editor apparently overdosed on cappuccino before he could find out. God damn you, coffee!
North Korea Isn't Requiring All Men to Have Kim Jong Un Haircuts
North Korea has finally gone too far. Forget about the nukes and human rights violations: Kim Jong Un's biggest crime is bringing back "the fade" ... by force.
"The Supreme Leader demands the supreme radness of Kid N' Play be recognized," an official statement said.
That BBC report on North Korea's hairdo laws was echoed by Time and other sites that followed suit by dropping the already ridiculous "only students have to look like Kim Jong Un" part and turning it into "all 12 million Korean men must" -- despite the fact that the story comes from Radio Free Asia, a nonprofit funded partially by the U.S. and not an actual overseas source.
And while that's probably enough to make it dubious, the Washington Post took it upon themselves to perform an out-of-the-box investigative process called "asking people who live there," the result being a resounding choir of guys who had no freaking clue their haircuts were apparently now illegal.
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