8:32 AM, EST
"If you've ever been in a situation like this, you just feel sort of violated." -- Mark Rober, Glitter Box video, 0:38
I sure do.
On December 22, I sent out a link in my free Tip of the Week to the glitter box video. It had gone viral in 4 days: 45 million hits.
This morning, I came across an article saying that "parts" of the video were faked. I did a search: glitter, viral video. I got lots more articles. Here are three.
https://hothardware.com/news/nasa-engineer-admits-parts-glitter-fart-bomb-prank-fakehttps://gizmodo.com/viral-video-of-glitter-bomb-for-package-thieves-exposed-1831254130
That is why I am posting this report today. I do not usually work on Sundays. But this, biblically speaking, is like a sheep that has fallen into a ditch -- or an ass. Me.
Mark Rober produced the video. He used to be a NASA engineer. He builds clever but odd-ball devices. He has a YouTube channel with 5.5 million subscribers: huge.
He has earned people's trust. Now he has betrayed this trust. The video was funny only because people trusted him. He had to have known this.
He fessed up to the media, sort of. He says he is not a prankster, but people he trusted were. They hoaxed him.
If this is a confession, it's weak. It's a version of Richard Nixon's initial explanation for Watergate: "I made mistakes." Yes, he did. So did Rober.
In the video, he told viewers that these boxes were stolen from his front porch. But they weren't. Rober lied. His buddies lied to him, he says. He did not know, he says.
Jimmy Kimmel once had Rober on his show to present some of Rober's April Fool's pranks. He should have known.
Robbers were not victims of a prank. We were.
Rober says he did not know. I'll tell you who else did not know: the company that put up the money for a prank that took seven months. He promoted the company in his video. It was a sponsored ad, as we learn at the end of the video. That company is now on the hook. It advertises that it sells security: Nord VPM. Now it is exposed as incapable of protecting itself from a faked prank. The company looks stupid. It has the canceled checks to prove just how stupid.
That lesson was learned last week by the German journalist who hoaxed Der Spiegel. He won awards for his fearless reporting. He was a fake. Der Spiegel is now doing a detailed study of just how badly it was hoaxed. Here was a journal famed for its reporting and attention for details. This got worldwide attention. There is egg all over its face.
Don't cheat. This is a basic rule. Ben Franklin said it best: "Honesty is the best policy."
I sensed a prank. I did research before I sent out my Tip of the Week. There was nothing. So, I went along with it. Why? Because I thought that no one would be foolish enough to risk his reputation for the sake of a humorous hoax, especially the sponsor who paid for it. I was wrong.
Rober has fessed up to the press. He has yet to fess up to his 5.5 million subscribers. His YouTube channel is silent on this, as you can see.
I should have gone with my gut: the video was staged. No one has that many thieves of packages. The neighborhood would not be safe. But the video was just too funny. I was taken in.
I made a mistake!
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