I created a monster

image credit: conradbrunstrom.wordpress.com

In 2014, I created a monster.

I wrote a work of viral fake-news, completely unintentionally.

I'm not going to retell the story; you can follow the link above for that. But since then, my "Bibi speech" has been resurrected and gone viral again twice - in 2019 and now, in 2021. And, moreover, it's been translated into Spanish and Russian (though I haven't seen it in Hebrew yet). I even got a mention on Snopes!

I feel a kind of guilty pride about this. I mean, I wasn't specifically intending for my openly fictional prose to get copypasta'd and circulated as if it were real. But the fact is, it clearly touched and resonated with a huge number of people, who were inspired to forward it to an average of eight hundred of their closest friends (I may be approximating here, but then, it's well documented that 84% of all statistics are invented on the spot). It seems that every time Israel goes into yet another round of fighting with Hamas, my monster, seemingly of its own volition, creaks open the top of its coffin, lurches out into cyberspace, and storms around the world, now in multiple languages.

I don't have much more to say about this story, because I'm still processing the meaning of it all, and with the current situation and my personal responsibilities, I don't really have time to wax lyrical.

I will, however, take advantage of the attention I'm receiving to post a brief commercial message: 

If you enjoyed my writing, there's more of it. I've written a pretty darn good novel, plus a few short stories. Go and get some of the free stuff here.

I also write speeches for the Prime Minister of Israel. Hey, it's his problem if he doesn't want to use them...

I go viral!

2021 Update: see here

I have a confession to make: for years, it's been one of my private ambitions to start a viral Internet hoax.  I am fascinated by what makes people forward/like/share information that is obviously fake.  I haven't really been trying that hard, but I have made some lame attempts at an over-the-top virus warning, and created a phony Facebook competition to win a million dollars that attracted absolutely zero interest.

And then, a few days ago, in a moment of frustration at Israel's lame leadership, I penned the speech I wish we could hear from our Prime Minister ending it with the line, "... and then I awoke, and it was all a dream", and shared it on Facebook.

Nothing much came of that, or so I thought.  A few people commented on the article, and there were one or two shares.  And that was it.

Until a few days later, when someone forwarded to me the entire text of my speech, minus the last line.  In other words, they believed this was a real speech, and had sent it to me because they thought I would take heart from it.

I did.  I so did!  At first, I sat staring at the screen, open mouthed, then as I checked the "forwarded" thread to see how many degrees of forwarding this mail had gone through, I broke into a huge smile, a laugh, and I actually started jumping for joy.  Really.

I had done it!  Without even trying!  My fictional prose - my very own! - had gone viral as a chain email hoax!

To whoever took the trouble to copy and paste my text into email without attribution: I forgive you.  And I love you.  With rockets flying in all directions around my ears, you have made my month.  Thank you.