Girl Quits On Dry Erase Board a Hoax 147
suraj.sun writes "It's the same old story: young woman quits, uses dry erase board and series of pictures to let entire office know the boss is a sexist pig, exposes his love of playing FarmVille during work hours." Story seem too good to be true? It probably is, at least according to writer Peter Kafka. Even so, Jay Leno and Good Morning America have already reached out to "Jenny."
Re:Old, and fake (Score:3, Interesting)
I am astonished at the number of people who fell for this. It just proves that people have no operational critical thinking skills and just take anything they're fed as the truth. This is just a small example of how they treat more vital things like news of current events. If the AP wrote it or the local news anchor parroted it from a teleprompter, or a government organization released a statement, then it must all be true and taken at face value.
As for this particular incident, it was instantly obvious to everyone with a two digit IQ that it was fake (it didn't last long enough or fool enough people to properly call this an actual hoax).
What gave it away? Well, for one thing, are we supposed to believe that an HPOA like that was actually answering phones and doing some douchebag's dirty work in some great aspiration to be a stock broker? Hardly. In fact, I think my first sarcastic comment moments after this story first popped up in links from people I know was "Like a HPOA like that has to work as anything but a model".
The second give-away is the clearly fake office.
The third give-away is the quality of the photographs and the lighting.
The the second and third elements above, they combine to give you that very strong "reality porn shoot" vibe. You could tell people that these photos are actually from some new OfficeBangBus website and everyone would believe it, because it just has that "fake staged office, professional lighting, pro-sumer camera" look to it.
If the idiots behind this wanted the "hoax" to really succeed, they would have found a real office for her to stand in and snapped shots with a consumer point and click camera in whatever the real life office lighting was.
The most offensive part is that this wasn't even a successful internet hoax. Most people immediately called it out as a fake and it wasn't even more than a few hours before it was proven to be a fake. And yet, nobody gives a fuck and all sorts of media outlets are going to give it coverage. What is there to cover? It's a non-story, other than on a few websites like Slashdot where it actually has some minor relevance. How does this deserve any television play? And what will their angle be? "So, you were a chick that was hired to stand there and be photographed in a failed internet hoax... uh...". I mean, if you were going to talk to ANYONE about it, why would it be the person who was the least involved? It's not like that girl came up with the idea or executed it. She responded to an audition call and stood there holding a whiteboard for a couple hours.
I still believe this is far more than a mere "hoax" attempt. It seems clear to me that the guys behind it WANTED it to be known that it was a hoax as quickly as possible (if they had not admitted it so quickly, it would have dragged on a little longer). It sounds to me like they wanted to create a hoax AND get the attention for having created it all in one fell swoop. Either to get attention for themselves in some sort of "hey, we're a great media agency - hire us to promote your stuff!" attempt. . . . OR they were hired to do this by NBC or someone. Not as a "hoax" but as a "fake hoax" where the attempt wasn't to fool people, but to get everyone to pay attention to the girl so they could then announce that they're giving her a sit-com of her own and she's the star (which was already planned BEFORE the hoax was executed, surely).
It'd be a lot like saying "we're a helium company and to promote our product, we're going to manufacturer an event where a little kid gets stuck in his dad's blimp and floats across the country and is covered live on the news".
Re:Time to head to home depot... (Score:3, Interesting)
Use cheap vodka to clean whiteboards.
It does a better job, is a lot cheaper, and doesn't leave the entire room choking on the incredibly nasty fumes like commercial whiteboard cleaner.
Just put it in a regular spray bottle and don't tell anybody what it is - works like a champ. I haven't tried it on permanent marker, but I have a feeling it might just work...
Re:Old, and fake (Score:3, Interesting)
I think his point is rather that in some places, being "merely attractive" or "merely talented" aren't enough to ensure career prospects. It's not about obsession with superlatives, but more of a signal-to-noise problem.
In Sweden you don't stand out for being six feet tall and blonde. In Russia, your 1700 chess rating means you sometimes win casual games.
Signal-to-noise ratio in LA must be pretty fucked up. Until Mad Men, Christina Hendricks was pretty much unknown and invisible. I mean, WTF?