Network
Everybody likes a good joke, right? Especially when April 1st comes around! It’s only human to enjoy a laugh, guffaw, or even a chortle, especially when it’s due to the misfortune of others!
But an innocent joke intended for members of a car club ended up going viral and demonstrating the power of the Internet.
When the SAAC is the Shelby-American Automobile Club, sent out their annual April Fool’s gag, some people posted it online for others to see. Most notable was a semi-accurate mock-up of the front page of The New York Times with a headline that read Senator Eyes Collector Cars as Revenue Source and an article about how auto enthusiasts who dodge taxes are in Senator Chuck Schumer’s crosshairs.
The Internet exploded, with many comments on various automotive websites (and even a gun site, pun not intended) adding to the political discontent that already exists in America. “This should make all you LIBERAL *** suckers [sic] here proud. One of your party does it again. When the fark [sic] are you liberal lovers going to wake up and realize the DEMOCRAPTIC [sic] party hase [sic] no shame in their game?” said a guy from Ohio. It should be noted that even when shown evidence the item was a gag, this guy did not stop believing it was true.
Meanwhile, in Albany, Chuck Schumer started receiving negative messages from disgruntled car nuts from around the country. Eventually they and, in turn, SAAC’s Rick Kopec realized something was very wrong, and Rick sent out a message to put it all to rest:
| The Shelby American Automobile Club’s annual April Fool’s gag reached a much wider audience that anyone could have predicted.(…more) Initially a four-page newsletter was emailed to every member. It contained stories about a perpetual motion ’68 Shelby, a ’69 GT350 that supposedly got 40 miles per gallon and a bogus front page recreation of the New York Times, dated March 28th, that had two stories. One was a hoax about purported tax legislation being prepared by Sen. Charles Schumer, which would tax every collector car, antique, hot rod and race car in the country. This was, of course, concocted out of thin air. But it was, on the surface, believable and it hit numerous hot buttons of car owners.
As soon as some SAAC members read this they immediately went into full “Paul Revere mode,” posting the article on a wide variety of Internet car forums. Once on those forums, readers swarmed like angry killer bees, both posting angry comments about the unfairness of the concept and spreading parts and pieces of the original article in emails and postings. It was the classic definition of something “going viral.”
When readers on some forums recognized the whole thing as an April Fool’s joke and posted this, other readers seemed to look right past the warnings. We now know how Orson Wells must have felt after his 1938 “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast resulted in traffic jams as panicked people tried to flee New Jersey.
While we enjoy a good April Fool’s prank as much as anyone, we never envisioned that this one could spread so quickly or so widely beyond the Shelby American Automobile Club. We deeply regret if taking this story seriously has caused anyone any undue distress or embarrassment. To keep more of that from happening we would greatly appreciate it if you could forward this message to as many car enthusiasts as possible. If they forward it to others who can forward it to even more people, maybe this second message will catch up with and overpower the first one.
And finally, please do not contact Senator Schumer’s office. He already has his hands full with real issues of importance. |
It’s interesting to note that even with Internet’s power to spread messages, many people did not use the very same Internet to investigate whether the article was real. Or was the other headline about polka dancers having lower rates of colon cancer not enough?
