It certainly sounded reasonable: Burger King employee quits and steals all the chicken nuggets on his way out. “Today was my last day working at Burger King so I took all their nuggets, f___ it,” read the tweet by a South Florida high school student.
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Only one problem, it wasn’t true and most of the world fell for it, including legitimate news organizations, and business blogs. Not one journalist bothered to check out the story.
John Correa, 18, posted the picture on Jan. 23 under the name Zealot. The tweet went viral and the fake news story became a national sensation on TV, radio and the Internet.
The story even made the front page of the wildly popular website Fark with the user submitted headline: “Naturally the first thing you think of on your last day of working at Burger King is to get even with them by taking all their chicken nuggets.”
But as Correa explains, he posted the picture for a greater purpose.
“I just wanted to bring attention to how easily people are influenced by what they see on social media,” Correa told Local 10.
DA BOI LOL @johnalexcorrea pic.twitter.com/CM8UoqtfB2
— Cyn (@cynvaldess) January 26, 2016
Here’s how Correa pulled the prank off. The Miami Burger King employee was asked by his manager to go to another Burger King location and pick up some extra chicken nuggets.
That’s when it hit him to post the picture of chicken nuggets and the prank tweet about quitting and escaping with all the nuggets.
The rest as they say is chicken nugget history.
Fantastic! Wish I had of thought of this. But on a much higher level, how is it even possible to determine what is the truth today?
We are all victims of this thing called the internet.
Love a good prank.
…you mean people believe you when you lie about something completely believable and mundane that there is no benefit to lying about? Maybe you already did it… Your name isn’t even Dave, and everyone believed it was without even back tracing your IP address to verify it! THE WONDER! Actually, he didn’t fool anyone. He convinced people he is an idiot, and he is.
I put my name as Adam! you thought my name was Adam but it’s not! WHAT A PRANKSTER I AM!! It’s like substitute teacher day in elementary school! DOUBLE TWIST… My name REALLY IS ADAM! You thought I was lying about my name, but I was LYING ABOUT LYING! Prank GODHOOD! …or maybe no one cares if it was a lie… yeah, that one.
P.S. you now have no idea if my name is Adam or not.
So glad he was transporting them not in a cooler, but on the car seat out in the sun. Yum.