With the creation of YouTube in 2005, viral videos have taken over the Internet; in order for a video to become ‘viral’ over a million people have to view it. Not surprisingly, this leads to videos being staged and fake, which makes the watcher feel betrayed. There are a lot of videos that you can tell are fake but some are so well done that it is hard to tell what is staged and what is real. And with the advance in technology and equipment to make a video, you can take a concept and make it a reality but there are some videos out there that just plain cross the line.
10. One Man Does 29 Celebrities Impressions to an Original Song
Doing one celebrity impression is impressive but doing 29 while singing a song is amazing. Rob Cantor, a musician and composer, fooled the entire Internet by singing his own original song, while doing 29 celebrity impressions. This video went viral and got over seven million views in just a couple of weeks. For weeks, he had the entire Internet believing that he was able to do all those great impressions until he posted a video that explained how he did the entire video, with voice actors that can do different impressions.
The video “29 Celebrity Impressions, 1 Original Song” hit the Internet in July of 2014 and popped up on news feeds pretty quickly. Cantor pulled this stunt to promote his new album and his single “Perfect.” This is actually a pretty brilliant idea because it is not only a fun way to release your song but, even though it is staged, it is enjoyable to watch.
9. Jeff Gordon Pepsi Commercial
Four time NASCAR Cup Series champion, Jeff Gordon, made a commercial for his sponsor, Pepsi, where he disguises himself and takes an unknowing car salesman for a wild ride. There are several signs that most of this video is fake; the first being that the sticker on the car says 09’ when Camaros supposedly weren’t made that year, not to mention the interior of the car was also the interior a 2013 Camaro.
The video also shows skid marks behind the car sitting in the parking lot, which happened during multiple takes of the scene. And the salesman is an actor that signed a waiver to be in the commercial because all the others in it were blurred out. The footage during the entire video of the commercial shows just the passenger in the car but none of Jeff Gordon driving the car. Why? Because a stunt driver named Brad Noffsinger is doing all the driving! The writer that debunked this commercial got taken on a wild ride of his own that was in fact real. Gordon dressed as a cab driver with a neck tattoo, took the writer on a high-speed chase after getting pulled over by the police. Gordon, disguised as an ex-con, scared the writer and in the end he pulls into a garage with the Pepsi spokesman waiting for them to reveal the prank.
8. Are You My Man In The Jacket?
Heidi Clarke pleaded with YouTube to find help her find a guy that she met at a bar and had a connection with, by showing the world his jacket but it was just a marketing campaign to promote the jacket by Witchery Fashion. Heidi Clarke isn’t even her real name; the people that were responsible for the campaign were the marketing group Naked Communications. When contacted about the video, she denied that it was fake and that she was really trying to find her true love.
Clarke, who claimed to be a shop assistant, made the video and had her friend, who was a graphic designer, setup a website to find this mystery man. The holes started to show because one, she didn’t have a Facebook profile for this quest, which if you really wanted to find that person Facebook would be the way to go. Two, it seemed that all of her pictures on her website were too professional looking to be photographed by herself. An EXIF data from the picture was removed so you couldn’t tell where there were from. All of this started to add up and the public started to doubt her story, which was confirmed by the company later.
7. Waitress Crashes Through A Window
After long day of work a waitress is cleaning up and closing for the night but as she is clearing tables she trips and crashes through a window. Glass is everywhere and the woman doesn’t get up at the end; this is all caught on a surveillance camera in the restaurant. But after close analysis of the video you can clearly see that the video is fake. There are quite a few signs that the video was staged.
The first is that closed circuit cameras don’t have audio on them. The next is that when the woman crashes through the window you can hear the glass shatter but that glass shouldn’t have shattered like that, it should have just cracked or not broken at all because most glass is tempered to prevent things like that from happening. On closer research, it is found to be a commercial for DulcoEase a stool softener.
6. Worst Twerk Fail Ever
Back in 2013, the ‘twerk’ was sweeping the nation thanks to Miley Cyrus; many people were posting videos of themselves doing this rump-shaking move but one video was the worst one of all. Known as the “Worst Twerk Fail Ever” this video showed a woman dancing around to some music and then doing a handstand on the door while twerking. But this fun act was cut short when someone opens the door and she crashes onto a glass coffee table with burning candles on it and sets herself ablaze.
A little bit after the video went viral, she appeared on Jimmy Kimmel to tell her tale. During this interview, she reveals that the video was a hoax and that he is responsible. The woman is a stuntwoman and was in no real danger during the video. Jimmy Kimmel has been making videos like this to fool his audience for a while now, including a video from Sochi where an Olympian sees a wolf in the hallway of her hotel. Kimmel has told numerous news outlets that he doesn’t plan on stopping these prank videos in the near future.
5. Eagle Hunts Baby
Every parent’s worst nightmare is for something bad to happen to his or her child, and this was most certainly the case when one parent from Montréal almost lost his little boy to a golden eagle, or did he? Back in 2012, a video was going around the Internet of a baby being picked up by an eagle and then dropped to the ground; it looked very believable and got over a million views in one day. After watching the video a few times, you can see some of the irregularities in it.
The first thing that is off is that golden eagles have white tails and not brown ones with white tips. The next thing about the video is that the baby lifts up as the eagle is releasing the baby, which means that the baby was being held up by something. And CGI was obviously used because if the camera moves too fast, it will pick up the CGI, so the operator puts it to the ground to avoid showing it. Thank goodness this video was a fake or parents across the world would have to add something else to their list of scary stuff that can happen to their kids.
4. Three German Students Surprise A Homeless Guy
The way that people treat the homeless is despicable; they turn their noses up at them and don’t acknowledge that they are there but three German students wanted to do something about it. So one day they recorded a make shift concert for a homeless man and the people that were walking on the street; they performed a song, collected money and gave it to the young man. This was indeed a great gesture but it was really staged to raise awareness.
The men are part of a nonprofit organization called Japy E.V., which wants to raise awareness about the homeless problem in America. This video led to others doing the same thing but with actual homeless people to raise money and awareness. It’s amazing how a staged video can raise awareness for a cause that is plaguing the nation.
3. Pig Rescues Goat
The Internet is obsessed with cute animals doing extraordinary things and seeing an adorable pig rescue a baby goat from drowning made the Internet go crazy. The news went crazy over this as well. All the stations were reporting on this daring rescue by a pig but, in fact, it was a staged video for a TV show on Comedy Central called Nathan For You.
The truth is, it was staged so a petting zoo could get more visitors to see the hero pig. The host of the show wanted to bring people from all over the world to see this zoo. It’s pretty easy to tell that this video is fake because why would a pig rescue a goat and why didn’t the staff at the zoo intervene, when they saw it was “drowning,” but they did have a camera rolling to catch the heroic feat. This is another one of those marketing videos that people took too seriously.
2. Lonelygirl15 Blogs
From 2006-2008, Bree Avery took the Internet by storm with her Lonelygirl15 blogs, which was about a 16-year-old girl that lived in a small, boring town and was homeschooled by her parents. It only took a few months for the people of the Internet to piece together all of the things wrong with her videos. The investigation started in July of 2006, when Bree became friends with Daniel and he became her romantic interest. A few weeks later a YouTuber created a fan site for the blog, where followers could talk about the blog; few days later an Internet culture blog posted that the domain used for this site was purchased a month before the first blog aired. This cause suspicion but they claimed Daniel bought it as a joke for Avery.
The pieces were starting to fall apart but they keep going like nothing was wrong until another commenter was analyzing the story line for Avery and noticed that her story was too developed to be just a normal teenage girl, it was like the whole story of Bree was made up. The blog kept gathering more and more irregularities with her story until finally in September of that year it was revealed that the girl’s real name was Jessica Lee Rose and that she was an actress. The filmmakers came forward and the series ended up winning the “Number One Web Celeb” from Forbes Magazine and a Webby for Best Actress.
1. Celebrity Hover board Commercial
2015 marks the year that Marty McFly travels to in Back To The Future Part 2, so with the year in the near future, fans got excited in March because the famous hover board from the movie would be available for purchase in December of this year. This got the Internet very excited; celebrities like Tony Hawk, Moby, and Terrell Owens were in the commercial trying them out. You can see them flying through the air on these glorious hovering skateboards and tell the audience that they are so easy to use. And seeing Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) giving away the hover board at the beginning of the commercial was the icing on the cake – too bad the commercial was fake.
The video was created by Funny or Die and is just a trick in movie magic like the hover board seen in the movie; fans were saddened by this discovery. What made this one so believable is that they even set up a website where you could read about it and pick which one you wanted. Even though it was a well planned out hoax, fans are still waiting for the day that hover boards will be available to the public for real.
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No Kony 2012?