For some reason, the world simply believes just about every single thing that is posted on Facebook even if it is the wildest story imaginable. Just recently, everyone thought they could get millions of dollars from Mark Zuckerberg for sharing a status . Now, people are trying to raise money and awareness for a hero dog that was badly burned, but in reality, the dog just has a piece of ham on his face.
According to BGR , a guy named Stephen Roseman posted a photo on his Facebook page a couple of days before Christmas. The picture shows a dog sitting calmly with something obviously on its face, but at first glance, it isn’t really that easy to figure out what it is.
https://www.facebook.com/modelmissmischief/posts/10153778055683080
The picture almost instantly went viral, but not just because of what people saw, but because of what they read. Roseman had a rather simple caption with the picture, but it generated a lot of attention.
“This poor dog was badly burned and disfigured trying to save his family from a house fire.
One like = one prayer
One share = ten prayers”
Here it is a week later and the picture, as of Wednesday night, has over 115,000 shares to go along with over 60,000 likes. There are close to 800 comments, and for those that actually looked at the picture longer than five seconds, they realized something.
The dog isn’t burned at all. The dog simply has a piece of ham on his face.
The post went viral in a hurry and it’s still getting plenty of attention a week after Roseman posted it, but it’s not true. How can that be proven? Well, Roseman got on Facebook and decided to let everyone know in the comments that he was just joking around, per Snopes .
“People, people this isn’t even my dog, I found this picture on fascistbook, stole it, and decided to use it in a prank to fool these religitards
“So I did, and low and behold idiots left and right fall for it, and those that didn’t, seem to think they have a superior intelligence or something, for pointing out the obvious
“Keep in mind, I never told a single soul to like this, that is their choice, I don’t give a f*ck either way.”
Roseman posted the photo and made up the caption so that he could ridicule and make fun of those who think sharing a post or picture will nab them $1 million or help infants or cure cancer. Little did he know that he would create one of the most popular memes and Facebook hoaxes of 2015.
https://www.facebook.com/BusinessInsiderUK/posts/1938557666369934
Sure, people may have simply been pouring out their heart and trying to give some help to the dog, but it does fall in the category of “gullible” as well. Roseman chimed in on the comments from time to time and even kept making fun of people.
“So far, fifty two thousand prayers for ham dog, God bless him.”
A lot of people did realize it was a joke, and one of Roseman’s friends even went as far as to create a Go Fund Me page for the dog with ham on its face. Thank God that no one has truly fallen for the joke that far though and donated money.
Well, as of Wednesday night, no one had donated any. There’s still time for others to learn of the “badly burned” dog with ham on its face.
When it comes to Facebook , people are pretty much willing to believe anything and everything that shows up in their newsfeed. The “badly burned” dog who really just had ham on its face shows the kind-hearted nature of a lot of people, but also how easy they are to trust everything on the Internet.
[Image by Chris Ratcliffe/Getty Images]