The Weirdest Hoax on the Internet

What started as a harmless joke by two students, became one of the biggest hoaxes on the internet.

This is a translation from our German channel Simplicissimus.

Sources:

Music:

Artlist

Night Rider 87 - Digital Battleground
ANBR - Run
Evert Z - Lets Go Bananas
Yonatan Riklis - Tomcat Rag
Jamie Bathgate - Homemade Apple Pie
ANBR - Dance and Whisper
Roie Shpigler - What About Sunrise

Epidemic Sound

Heigh-Ho - Bootlick
Brendon Moeller - Sunshine Rain
Aiyo - Too Quiet
FLYIN - Go Off
Marten Moses - Into Hiding

The Big Crunch from Stevia Sphere licensed under CC BY 3.0.

Magic Escape Room, Professor Umlaut, In The West, The Entertainer, Run Amok from Kevin MacLeod licensed under CC BY 4.0.

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Armchair documentaries, almost weekly

[fern-tv]

Sorry for mispronouncing the word “tear”. We meant tear as in tearing a photo 🫣

[TilDrill]

"She was not holding appropriate respect for the power of the electric toaster" is brilliant

[alexandriaocasio-smollett]

I just asked Siri who invented the toaster. She said Alan McMasters.

Well done, lads.

[littlejack]

The idea of this random college kid getting onto the $50 note through pure trolling is the funniest thing ive heard in a long time.

[black.sasuke.uchiha]

Alan sounds like a super villain when he talks, I love it. Can’t believe I just now subscribed after so many videos.

[tucker]

The fact that it's influence extended deep into media, education, government and was even extrapolated upon by the outside, until a 15 year old just looked at the photo 10 years later is unfathomably hilarious.

[richardlbowles]

No, no. What you do is fake the photo, print it out, _then_ tear it for real and scan it back in. The whole thing looks much less phoney.

[gelber_kaktus]

Nothing is more wikipedia, than a list of hoaxes on wikipedia, also listing their time existing.

[quietmemer]

The fact that an almost 10 year old hoax like this was found by a 15 year old is wild to think about.

[Hesalittleoff]

That was the smoothest transition into your sponsor ad I have seen. It took me a few seconds to realize it was a promo. Well done.

[alex-tihf]

"It's just a prank bro", the prank in question:

[dragonetafireball]

This reminds me of when UFO pranksters methodically document and explain how they did a hoax but that rarely gets seen as much as the hoax and conspiracy theorist will generally think the government got to them

[imp]

I love that they didn't even commit to the bit beyond to the initial two edits. They kinda just let it happen. Makes it 10 times better imo.
Also I was expecting that at the end of the video, they'd go "None of this ever happened, don't believe what you see on the internet"

[codymichael]

“At least, that’s what it says on Wikipedia”

Brilliant 👌🏻

[juniorsunny]

If only all online misinformation is as harmless as this. Now we even have machines telling us to add glue to pizza

[andreicecold]

9:37 The funniest part of this story is that this is also wrong, and has since been changed on the article itself

[jhooper]

10/10 writing for that last line, "At least, that's what it says on Wikipedia."

[catadelic]

Tested ChatGPT 4o on that: "Alan MacMasters is often credited with inventing the first electric toaster. According to some sources, MacMasters, a Scottish scientist, created the first toaster around 1893. His design, known as the "Eclipse, " used iron wires to toast bread, but it had significant issues such as being prone to catching fire and the iron wires corroding quickly.

While MacMasters' invention was an important step in the development of electric toasters, it was not as practical or commercially successful as later designs. The advancements by Albert Marsh and the introduction of the more reliable and marketable D-12 toaster by General Electric were crucial in making the electric toaster a common household appliance. Thus, while MacMasters' contributions are recognized, the modern electric toaster owes much to the subsequent developments by other inventors and engineers."

[ayushm]

Just checked and yes chat gpt still thinks that Alan McMasters invented the toaster in 1893 😂

[venti]

I doubt anyone’s gonna see this but I just want to point out the voice crack at 3:20