- [Dr. Mike] A Middle school teacher in Japan walks
into an equipment room and finds two sneaky sixth graders
who've snuck off from class.
Only they weren't doing drugs, they weren't kissing,
They were licking each other's eyeballs.
Stunned by what he saw, the teacher grabs
the two students and questions what the heck they're doing.
Was there something in the student's eyes? Was it a dare?
Nope. They were licking each other's eyeballs
for sexual gratification.
And if that revelation wasn't shocking enough,
the teacher quickly had his mind blown,
because it wasn't just these two students.
After holding an all great assembly
and asking point blank, who had ever done this,
one third of the students raised their hands.
And while you may think, boy, that's disgusting,
I don't need to hear any more about this.
I promise you this story quickly goes from one shocking act
to the entire world of Western journalism imploding.
Stick around until this clock hits zero,
and you'll see what I mean.
Technically, this bizarre practice
is called Oculolinctus.
In Latin, Oculo means eye.
And Linctus means to lick,
or you can call it by street name, worming, Fun!
Along with being an obviously intimate physical act,
the eye contains a high concentration of nerve endings.
These nerve endings can become a home
for pleasurable physical sensation,
you know, similar to receiving a foot massage
except with, you know, a tongue and on the eye.
News outlets like Buzzfeed reported a possible origin
of the now viral craze to come from a band
called Born, whose music video, Spiral Lie,
depicted worming in all its glory.
Slate later reported on teens wearing eye patches
and why students were wearing them.
- [Reporter] School teachers first became aware
of worming when large swaths of students showed up
to class wearing eye patches to cover up their pinkeye.
- [Dr. Mike] Pink eye or conjunctivitis as
it's clinically known is an infection
of the membrane that covers the front
or white part of your eye.
The infection becomes itchy and inflamed
and your eye turns a reddish pink color.
And while pink eye commonly clears up on its own
an even greater risk is someone's tongue scratching,
your cornea, which could lead to a corneal infection.
Which does carry serious complications
and a risk of losing your eyesight for good.
To take things a step further, CBS interviewed
Dr. Robert Glatter, an emergency medicine physician
at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York,
who said chlamydia is a bacteria
of particular concern, which can be spread sexually
and has the potential to lead
to blindness if left untreated.
Now, you know, you can get an STI
without even taking off your clothes.
Pretty scary though, right?
Countless teenagers licking each other's eyes,
transmitting disease and potentially going blind.
Not only was this story covered by CBS news,
Slate and Buzzfeed, but also by ABC, Fox, The Guardian,
The Daily Mail, The Telegraph, Business Insider,
Huffington Post, The Daily Beast, The New York Post,
The New York Daily News and The Toronto Sun.
Surprisingly, all this coverage centered around one thing,
the poor middle school teacher
who stumbled into a room, he wished he hadn't.
And here's where the entire story spins out of control.
He actually didn't, because he doesn't exist.
The entire story is made up.
There was no teacher.
There were no students.
There was no mass outbreak of pinkeye.
As it turns out, Western media's initial
and only source came from a blog
called Naver Matome who posted the piece after grabbing
it from a subculture website Bucchinenews.
We were unable to find either piece.
Which both appear now to be removed from the internet.
It's incredible to even ask, but can you think
of a better primary source for an
international health story that an unnamed teacher
at an unnamed school, in an unnamed city, from a blog?
Truly Pulitzer worthy.
So without a good source, why did
so many news organizations run this story?
Well, journalism is admittedly a difficult profession
and mistakes do happen.
Lara Logan's inaccurate coverage of Benghazi on 60 minutes,
Brian Williams, spotty memory regarding
an Iraqi helicopter attack in 2003.
The point is, true journalists admit when they're wrong,
which is why I was so comforted to see that despite
the inaccurate reporting of the eyeball licking,
apologies and redaction's were issued by The Guardian
as well, as, well that's it.
Every one of the other sources still have the article
or video live online with zero recognition
that it is in fact false.
The reality is, that news organizations are struggling
to make money, and occasionally do cut corners
in their reporting.
The problem with that, is it strikes directly
at the credibility of news organizations
and makes it more difficult for us to put our trust in them.
It also paints Japanese teens in an unfair
and inaccurate light.
Take everything you read with a grain of salt.
Verify with multiple sources and recognize that sometimes
the news can get it wrong too.
If a story you're reading seems absolutely ridiculous,
or just too good to be true, you might be right
and there could be more there than meets the eye.
That's why I say it's always good to be a healthy skeptic.
I actually reacted to some brutal medical memes,
click here to check that out.
And if you're interested in reading more
about how this story got started,
click the link in the description.
As always, stay happy and healthy.
(music concludes)