You learn something new every day that might be false.
Let's talk about that.
♪ (theme music) ♪
- Good Mythical Morning! - You know, every now and then...
...a news story comes along that is so unbelievable that you think,
"That can't be true!" because it isn't true.
It is not true. And we're gonna talk about some of those that have fooled millions
today. It's time for "Bogus News Stories That Went Totally Viral."
Starting with the 2014 headline "Ghost Ship Full of Cannibal Rats...
- ...Headed Toward England." - I'd click on that.
- (laughing) Yeah, I did. - You did? When it first came out?
- I clicked on all of these. - Okay.
- I fell for all of 'em. - I don't want this to be bogus!
- Come on! - Okay, this is...
This was picked up by lots of different outlets: The Sun, CNN, Daily Mail.
- CNN. - Now, it's not completely, completely...
- ...false. Lemme show you how this... - Okay.
...happened. So back in 2010, there was this big ship that was abandoned at
a port for two years. And then they were like, "Let's tow that thing away for scrap."
That's what they said. And as they were towing it away for scrap, the towline
broke and it just drifted out into the Atlantic.
- And they just let it go at that point? - It's just like, "Whoa!" What do you do?
What do you do at that point? Well, psh. It's the ocean. Let the...
- ...ocean have it. The director of the... - Huh.
...Irish Coast Guard kinda got things started when he said,
(Irish accent) "The ship was alongside a harbor in Newfoundland, so we assumed
there are rats onboard." (laughing) "And that's a biohazard."
- A what? - "A byuo-hazard."
- "With a pot of gold beneath it!" -And then Belgian salvage hunter...
...Pim De Rhoodes was quoted as saying, (attempted accent) "There will be a lot
of rats, and they'll eat each other. If I get aboard, I'll have to lace
everywhere with poison." I have no idea what a Belgian sounds like.
- Like a pirate. - So I just made a voice.
- Yes, yes. The salvage hunter. - So this was like a game of telephone...
...that got turned into "Ghost Ship Full of Cannibal Rats Headed Toward England."
- And, listen. The thing has never... - Which is cool.
- ...been found. Somebody on Wikipedia... - Never been found.
...said that it sunk, but I don't wanna believe that. It's still out there.
We can add to this. And you know what happened, actually? One of those rats...
- ...ate a lot of other rats, grew into... - Yeah.
- ...a human-sized rat, and now he's... - Yes.
...training four human-sized turtles how to be ninjas.
- (crew offscreen laughing) - You know what? I've heard of this!
- Yes! Woo! - I'm so excited about it!
And this next one. In 2014, there was a new Apple iPhone iOS 8 ad...
- Yeah. - ...that made waves on the Internet.
In fact, it was for a product called "Wave." And this thing looked legit.
It said, "Now you can wave-charge your iPhone by placing it within a
household microwave for a minute and a half.
- Sounds good. - Microwave charge. Please be true, right?
Now, this spread through social media outlets like a real news story, but it
originated as a hoax on 4chan. But a lot of people started tweeting...
- ...about trying it, and here's one video. - (female voice) All right, so...
...we're doing the iPhone challenge in the microwave, starting at 6%.
- The challenge. Not really a challenge. - Mhm. Yeah, it's gonna be a challenge.
- (male voice) 10 seconds? - (female voice) 10 seconds?
- Yeah, 10 seconds should do it. - (female) It's see what it happens.
- "Let's see what it happens." - (gasping)
- (male) Its catching on fire. Stop it. - "It's catching on fire. Stop it."
- There's an arm. - (female) Aaaaand now it don't work.
- (laughing) Okay, all right. - (laughing) "Now it don't work."
- The best and the brightest tried this. - You know something's a hoax when...
- ...LAPD tweets #hoax. - Oh.
They said, "#Wave capability is a #hoax. Don't be fooled in microwaving your...
- ...#iPhone6. #Apple #Smartphone." - Wow, LAPD!
- Got that hashtag game down! - Wow! I'm gonna follow you...
...when I wanna know if something's true or not.
Yeah, did they tweet about this next one?
Uh, they might have. "Mysterious Clown Spotted Wandering Staten Island...
- ...at Night." This is 2014 as well. - Mm. I'm not liking this one.
I do remember this one, and it freaked me out even though I'm not in...
- ...Staten Island. All these people... - 'Cause you click on these stories!
- I click a lot, man. I'm a clicker. - I hadn't heard of any of these.
I am a clicker. It looks like Pennywise from Stephen King's "It," which scared
me a lot as a child. And this clown was spotted in multiple places. Lots of people
tweeting pictures of it. People started getting scared. Here's a tweet from
Carlo Sorrentino who said, "So I'm not cool with this Staten Island clown
thing that's developing at the moment." (laughing) So...
- Yeah. Me neither. - ...I understand. I wouldn't be either.
But then the New York Post, the bastion of journalistic excellence that they are,
did a little digging, and they found out that everyone who was posting about
this worked at the same company, Fuzz on the Lens Productions.
- (Link) Hm. _ (Rhett) And then once they were outed...
...Michael Leavy of Fuzz on the Lens Productions said, "We tweeted this as a...
...film within itself. We treated him as a character, and the world was...
...our production." That's a very Staten Island way of saying it was a...
- ...publicity stunt. - Yeah, and here we are perpetuating it.
- Yeah. - Fuzz on the Lens. Send 'em some...
- ...business, because they're creepy. - Yeah.
I got one for ya. 2015 headline: "Man Wakes Up in Morgue."
- You KNOW you gotta click on that. - This happens all the time.
This was shared by the New York Post, The Guardian, Huffington Post,
and many other sites. Here's how the story goes. A Russian man --...
- ...Russian man -- passed out while... - Mhm. Okay.
...drinking with his friends at a party. Ambu-lance was called. The ama-lance.
- Uh-huh. - Ama-lance showed up, pronounced him...
...dead on the scene, took him, put him in the morgue in the drawer, pushed him
in, and then all of a sudden, hours later: (pounding) "Hey! Hey!"
- Russian man's screaming. They let him... - Yeah.
...outta the thing, they question him a little bit, and then they let him go.
They were like, "Sorry. I guess you're not dead."
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Goes back to the same party.
- Gotta finish the party. - And continues to drink it up.
Now, this originated from a Russian newspaper, Khasanskiye Vesti.
- Yeah, that's how it is. - Exactly. I know. But then they posted...
...a retrac-ti-o-nes on their website. Actually on the Russian version of their
Facebook page. "The 2015 story 'Woke Up in a Morgue' was told by
police as a new year's practical joke, as a cautionary warning against...
...heavy drinking during the holiday season."
How is this a cautionary tale? The lesson here is drink all you want. Even if you...
- ...you'll wake up and you can drink more! - You'll come back!
And you can go back to the party, and then everyone will cover a story about you.
- Russian police, man! - Cautionary tale.
2005: "Lion Mutilates 42 Midgets in Cambodian Ring Fight."
- (Link) Click! Click! - Okay, let me say. Midgets is a...
...derogatory term. You're not supposed to say it, but it was in the headline, and...
- ...it is part of the story. - But we apologize.
This is how it got started. A fan publicly challenged the president of the CMFL,
otherwise known as the Cambodian Midget Fighting League, claiming
one lion could defeat his entire league of 42 fighters.
- Okay. - So then as the story goes, this fight...
...took place in a colosseum. It was called after 12 minutes, after which 28
fighters were declared dead, while the other 14 suffered severe injuries,
including broken and lost limbs. But the lion was still alive. Lion wins.
Now, this was picked up by all kinds of people: Howard Stern Show, New York...
...Post -- New York Post gettin' into a LOTTA stuff! -- Maxim Magazine...
- Post. You don't read... - ...Hm! And a few British outlets.
- ...Maxim Magazine. - No. So anyway, this was also started...
...on an Internet forum, and the guy who posted it apologized and said,
"I did this because I was trying to settle an argument that I was having
with a friend." He said that he thought 40 weaponless little people could defeat
one lion in a hypothetical fight, so in order to settle the dispute, he made a
fake news story to show him that he was wrong!
(laughing) So he tried to fool one guy. He ended up fooling, like, the world.
But what kind of way is that to settle an argument, anyway?
- Pretty cool. - "Hey, man. There's a news story about...
...the exact hypothetical scenario we talked about last night. Cambodia."
- So he made up the CMFL and everything? - Everything is made up!
- Every bit of it? Dang! - Not true, guys.
Man, I was hoping there was a... So are you going with the little people...
- ...or the lion, though? - Uh... I don't want that to happen.
- (laughing) Okay. - I don't even wanna think about it.
That's the right answer. All right, 2015 headline: "Did KFC Serve a...
- ...Customer a Deep-Fried Rat?" - Mm.
- Question mark. You did? - I remember this as well.
- You didn't write it, did you? - No.
- This wasn't to settle some sort of... - I remember seeing this.
This was covered by Today, Fox, Telegraph shared it, too.
But it originated from a Facebook post from Devorise Dixon.
(Link) Check it out. This is the picture that he posted. Now, you tell me
what it looks like. Is it a chicken tender or not? His tweet was,
"Don't eat fast food. I went to KFC yesterday and bought a 3-piece chicken
tender. As I bit into it, I noticed that it was very hard a rubbery...
- ...which made me look at it." - (laughing)
I never look at chicken tenders before I bite into 'em...
- Yeah, I'm doing something else. - ...until today.
- Rargh! "What? I gotta look at this one!" - (laughing) "As I looked down at it...
...I noticed that it was in the shape of a rat with a tail."
- It is, man. - It sent deep chills throughout...
...my whole body." Now, just eating tenders that send deep chills is...
- ...something I'm in the market for. - Yeah, you like that.
- (Link) But, I mean, it does have a tail! - (Rhett) Yeah.
(Link) So I don't know. He went back and told the manager. He was offered a
free meal. He said, "No, I'm getting a lawyer instead."
An independent lab verified that it was chicken.
- Not a rat. - But rat-shaped chicken.
And he lost the lawsuit. There actually was no lawsuit. But he gained 4,000...
- ...new Facebook friends! - Oh, it was worth it!
And you know, this is probably a good time to let you guys know that
I got some chicken tenders from Church's Chicken the other day.
And I've been holding onto this thing, but now that I've seen this, I thought I
should tell ya.
- (laughing) Come on! - I mean, look at that!
- That is a... - I was bitin' into this, and then I...
- ...stopped to look. - 'Cause it was kinda rubbery. (laughing)
- Dude! - I mean, that's... I mean, look.
- It's a left hand of somebody. - No, it's just a...
- Should I call a lawyer? - It's five tenders that have fused...
- ...in a very serendipitous fashion. - It could happen. You know, given...
- ...enough time. - (laughing)
- With enough chicken, anything can happen. - Mm. Thanks for liking, commenting...
- ...and subscribing. - You know what time it is.
- I'm Jasmine. - And I'm Naomi.
- We're in Gentry. - (both) And it's time to spin...
- ...The Wheel of Mythicality! - We can guarantee that if you...
...pick up a mug at rhettandlink.com/store, there will not...
- ...be a fried rat in it. - And you'll never put it down.
Well, you can put it down and pick it up as much as you want.
- Store! Oh, I made a mess. - Yes.
Click through to Good Mythical More. We're gonna play a video game:
- Rocketbirds: Harld-boirld Chicken. - (laughing)
Hard. Boiled. Chicken. (laughing)
(Rhett) "Rhett pulls the 'I'm dead' move on Link."
- (laughing) Hey, man. - Heeeey.
So remember that little people argument we were having about the lion?
- I'm dead. - This is how you wanna settle it?
- Really? - I'm dead.
Come on, man. We're not in middle school anymore.
I know. I'm dead.
- (strained) Stop.
- Okay, fine. I'm dead. - Oh!
[Captioned by Kevin: GMM Captioning Team]