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Media pranks

By Drew Grant 10/31/12 3:55pm

Media pranks

The fake birth of Obama (YouTube)

Exclusive: The Making of the Very Fake ‘Obama’s Kenya Birth Video’

Last week, Vice.com was “tipped off” to a video purporting to show Barack Obama’s birth in Mombasa, Kenya, on August 4, 1961. The 54-second clip, submitted by “Peter R.” made the rounds on various conspiracy sites, but its biggest exposure was on Atlantic Wire, which questioned its validity in a headline that read “Fake Obama Birth Video Shows Fake Ann Dunham Giving Fake Birth to Fake Newborn.“

No duh. And now we can prove how obviously fake the very fake-looking video is! Not only do we have the exclusive “making of” series from the actual director, Vice contributor Nimrod Kamer, but we were invited last Wednesday to go on-set (at Cosmic yoga studio in Bushwick) to witness the rebirth of our president. Read More

By Drew Grant 11:01am

Media pranks

Ryan Holiday's "Trust Me, I'm Lying" (Amazon)

American Apparel Strategist Ryan Holiday Outs ‘Crazy’ Bloggers in Disappearing Forbes.com Post, One Day After Duping Every Other Media Outlet

Remember Ryan Holiday? He’s the longtime personal PR machine behind American Apparel (and Tucker Max!) whose tell-all book, Trust Me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator, was bought by Penguin’s imprint Portfolio and came with its own outline for a media campaign that included “Fake Leaked Chapters.” (And it’s on sale as of today!)

We’re not sure if Mr. Holiday’s link-baiting piece on Forbes.com this morning counts as “leaked,” since he put his byline next to it, but it’s definitely designed to blow up the Internet, starting with its craftily designed title “Your Favorite Bloggers are Literally Crazy (And That’s Why They’re Popular).” Almost two hours after appearing, the post has now been deleted from Forbes’ website! How strange! Could this have anything to do with the multiple media outlets that were forced to “correct” articles relating to Mr. Holiday from yesterday’s PR blitzkrieg? Read More

By Drew Grant 3/27/12 4:26pm

Media pranks

Nice try, Captain.

Gavin McInnes Wrecks Car, ‘Loses’ Best Friend in An Attempt to Win Back Dignity After Observer Punking (Video)

Still smarting from last week, recent New York Observer punkee and How to Piss in Public author Gavin McInnes announced that he had gotten into a horrible car accident on the last leg of his FTW tour. His friend Steve (???) was in the car. Luckily, no one was hurt, though the footage looked gruesome.

By the way, this is what happens when you call a journalist “a Socialite reporter” and “a fucking bitch.” (How dare anyone accuse us of being mere socialite writers! Also, don’t copy and paste entire articles from other publications on your site…what are you, The Huffington Post?)

We wouldn’t usually make light of a situation as scary as this, except that Mr. McInnes seemed to have no moral dilemma doing so himself…going so far as to have a hidden camera capture his apology to Steve, who doesn’t accept and instead freaks out on the Vice founder.

Of course, none of it was real. Read More