As fully grown adults, we're all fairly aware that we shouldn't believe everything we read. But it seems that rule is often forgotten when it comes to the internet, in all its wise, ubiquitous glory.
But one man, writer and online prankster Jonathan Sun, has taught us all a very valuable lesson this week. He thought up a social experiment where he made up an obscure fact which was just so perfect it seemed true, and managed to fool the entire internet into believing it was correct. But... it wasn't.
Cue a lot of red faces.
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Jonathan's lie was based on the childrens' names of famous actor Will Smith and his wife, Jada Pinkett-Smith. The pair have two teenaged children - Jaden and Willow - so Jonathan decided to create a fake bit of 'context' as to why they were named as they were.
Using some Photoshop skills, Jonathan edited a picture of Will and Jada's Google profiles to tweak their middle names. Jonathan pretended that Will's middle name was Oliver (hence Will O. = Willow) and that Jada's was Naomi (hence Jada N. = Jaden).
But because the internet is the internet, news spread far and wide, with many ill-informed folk even pretending they had always been in the knowledge of this clever 'fact'.
So there you have it - let's all be a little more selective about the things we read online, yes?
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