timosman
01-06-2018, 11:45 AM
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/05/trump-gorilla-channel-parody-326374
Amid startling disclosures about life in the Trump White House, Twitter users fall for a satirical fake excerpt from Michael Wolff's book that claims the president is obsessed with gorillas.
By LOUIS NELSON 01/05/2018
Amid the cascade of revelations from Michael Wolff’s incendiary book about the Trump administration, one Twitter user posted a screenshot Thursday night of what looked like an especially stunning excerpt. It described how the president, on his first night in office, had complained that White House televisions did not carry "the gorilla channel" and that Trump spent hours a day watching gorilla programming his staff subsequently produced to satisfy his simian appetite.
The excerpt, of course, was satire. But that was not clear to the countless people who spread it like wildfire across the internet, where the gag commingled with actual claims from the book, including that Trump prefers McDonald’s because he fears being poisoned and that he once failed to recognize former House Speaker John Boehner.
So many Twitter users took seriously the gag excerpt, which included the claim that Trump spends 17 hours a day watching videos of gorillas fighting, that its author subsequently tweeted a clarification and even switched to a highly literal new twitter username — "the gorilla channel thing is a joke” — to underscore the point.
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Amid startling disclosures about life in the Trump White House, Twitter users fall for a satirical fake excerpt from Michael Wolff's book that claims the president is obsessed with gorillas.
By LOUIS NELSON 01/05/2018
Amid the cascade of revelations from Michael Wolff’s incendiary book about the Trump administration, one Twitter user posted a screenshot Thursday night of what looked like an especially stunning excerpt. It described how the president, on his first night in office, had complained that White House televisions did not carry "the gorilla channel" and that Trump spent hours a day watching gorilla programming his staff subsequently produced to satisfy his simian appetite.
The excerpt, of course, was satire. But that was not clear to the countless people who spread it like wildfire across the internet, where the gag commingled with actual claims from the book, including that Trump prefers McDonald’s because he fears being poisoned and that he once failed to recognize former House Speaker John Boehner.
So many Twitter users took seriously the gag excerpt, which included the claim that Trump spends 17 hours a day watching videos of gorillas fighting, that its author subsequently tweeted a clarification and even switched to a highly literal new twitter username — "the gorilla channel thing is a joke” — to underscore the point.
....