Hoax Museum Blog: Websites

New Rotterdam — A trilogy of sites devoted to exploring the community of New Rotterdam (or New-Rot, for short). First we have the Official Site of the Town of New Rotterdam. Next there's the New Rotterdam Vocational Union High School. And last is the St. Giles School for Male Youth.

Jesus Freakin — Here's a curious website just sent in by a visitor: JesusFreakin.com. It's the homepage for a new role-playing game in which you get to play Jesus Christ, who's just returned after 2000 years and is ready for revenge. The game has tag lines such as 'The time has come to thin the flock,' and 'After 2000 years, he's ready to cast the first stone.' In my opinion, it's definitely a hoax. First of all, the site and graphics are pretty amateurish, given that it's supposedly produced by a video game company (Last Stone Studios). Second, there's no evidence that this company exists. It lists a business address on a press release it issued, but this address is just a p.o. box at a Mail Boxes etc. Finally, just reading through the site, it seems pretty obvious that it's satire. But the website does link to a CafePress page where you can buy Jesus Freakin merchandise. My guess is that whoever created the site is trying to be controversial as a ploy to sell a few t-shirts.

Diploma Mill — General Delivery University: America's only genuine diploma mill

Afterlife Telegrams — Afterlife Telegrams: Terminally ill volunteers will memorize your messages and, upon death, deliver them to your friends and family on the other side

Moscow Subway Metrocam — The Moscow Subway Metrocam: It's all in Russian, but the picture you see is from a webcam located inside an underground tunnel on the Moscow subway. Sometimes, if you're lucky, you'll see the light of an approaching train. And yes, it is a hoax. Its creator told me so.

First Genetics — First Genetics: The website of the first laboratory to have successfully genetically engineered an ape to be able to communicate with humans via typing on a keyboard

Yoga Kitty — Yoga Kitty: Instructional yoga videos for you and your cat

Black-Market Babies — Black Market Babies: Do you want a kid but don't want to deal with the stress of using an adoption agency? Let Black Market Babies steal a baby for you.

Ninja Burger — Ninja Burger: The world's predominant undergound ninja-run fast food delivery service

Origami Boulders — Origami Boulder: The Japanese art of folding paper used to make round rocks

Dehydrated Water — Buy Dehydrated Water: It's compact, lightweight, and easy to store

Baby Smashers — Baby Smasher: use baby-changing stations to dispose of unwanted babies

Eggs As Caviar — Chrissy Caviar: A woman sells her eggs as caviar

Free Electricity — Power from the Phone Company: Plug your electrical appliances into the phonejack

Hoax Website: Home Despot — Home Despot: Shop, Destroy, Rule

We Want Your Soul! — Cute hoax website: WeWantYourSoul.com. Though it's more of a spoof than a hoax, I'd say, since I don't think anyone is actually going to believe they're going to get money out of this.

Bleeding Napoleon, The Art of Johann Dieter Wassmann — Check out this site dedicated to the art of Johann Dieter Wassmann, a university lecturer/sewerage engineer/artist who lived and worked in Germany from 1841-1898. It's incredibly elaborate, including his life history and samples of his work. And nowhere on the site does it suggest that the entire thing is a hoax, that Johann Dieter Wassmann never existed. You only find this out if you click on the link at the bottom of the page that says 'Next Show: Melbourne International Arts Festival, 12-25 October, 2003.' This takes you to the website of the Melbourne Festival itself where it admits that, "The Wassmann Foundation and artist Johann Dieter Wassmann are constructions created by American-born installation artist Jeff Wassmann and Australian curator/writer Kirsten Rann." Thanks to John Plutt for telling me about this site.

Black Market Babies — If you feel like adopting a baby, but can't for some reason, just give the folks at Black Market Babies $50,000 and they'll steal someone's baby and give it to you. They also offer black market pandas and black market tigers for sale. Unfortunately their online form for submitting orders is 'temporarily' out of order. (Link via Entensity.net, who linked to me. Warning: their site is not safe for work).

Win Toilet Paper — Enter the Win-Toilet-Paper sweepstakes, and the toilet-paper delivery man could soon be knocking on your door. I'm not sure if this is for real or not. I don't feel like supplying them with my email address to find out.

Update: Apparently it's real. Strange, but real.

Meat Shakes — Here's a new hoax website: meatshake.com. It claims to be the homepage of the MeatShake Corporation, operators of the Meat Shake chain of fast food restaurants. You guessed it, MeatShake offers meat lovers the chance to quench their carnivorous appetites with ham, beef, and turkey shakes. Let there be no doubt. This is meat put in a blender and sipped through a straw. Their corporate vision is simple, "Meat. Lots of Meat." (Thanks to Jeff Whealton for pointing the site out to me).

In reality, the MeatShake website is the creation of a band from Long Beach called Ugly Duckling. Their latest album, "Taste The Secret," tells the story of the MeatShake restaurant and it's battles against the rival chain Veggie Hut. The three members of the band claim to have met while working at a MeatShake restaurant.

Need more proof that MeatShake is a hoax? Well, if you examine the images on the site, you'll discover that whoever created them forgot to change the hidden preview file attached to the images, and this preview file shows what the images looked like before they were photoshopped. Thus, we discover that:


  

The Meat Shake sign (left) was originally a sign for Champion Burgers (right)

  

and the Meat Shake store with a 'Taste the Secret' banner (left), is actually an abandoned store with a 'For Lease' sign (right).