Category Archive 'Pranks'

17 Apr 2017

HuffPo Removed Column Urging White Men Be Disenfranchised

, , , , ,


“Shelley Garland” — Not a real person

Not surprisingly, the recent HuffPo South Africa editorial calling for white men to be denied the vote was pulled, Milo Yiannopoulos reports, apparently because HuffPo finally figured out that Google turned up no such person and the alleged photo of “Shelley Garland” didn’t look like a real human being at all.

The Huffington Post has retracted a column suggesting white men should not be allowed to vote, claiming the piece’s author “appears not to exist.”

…[T]he original article (archived here), titled “Could It Be Time To Deny White Men The Franchise?” was credited to a HuffPo contributor by the name of Shelley Garland.

Garland’s profile – which has since been deleted – described her as an “activist and feminist” who is “working on ways to smash the patriarchy.”

Her article suggested denying “toxic white males” the right to vote for 20 to 30 years as a means of “seeing a decline in the influence of reactionary and neo-liberal ideology in the world.”

Describing the article as “extremely sexist and racist,” Breitbart’s Oliver JJ Lane states that it quickly received backlash from several people. …

Huffington Post SA [South Africa] has removed the blog ‘Could It Be Time To Deny White Men The Franchise?’ published on our site on April 13, 2017,” it reads.

“We have done this because the blog submission from an individual who called herself Shelley Garland, who claimed to be an MA student at UCT, cannot be traced and appears not to exist.”

The statement goes on to declare that the Huffington Post has now “strengthened” its standards related to identification.

HuffPo goes on to state that it will be submitting the problematic article to an ombudsman for analysis of its opinion.

The statement also includes an excerpt from the South Africa Press Code decrying the use of “discrimination and hate speech,” although the Huffington Post’s statement does not explicitly describe the problematic article as such.

“We apologise [sic] for the oversight,” the statement concludes. “We welcome further discussion. Please email blogs@huffpostsa.com.”

This retraction comes following Huffington Post South Africa’s Editor In Chief Verashni Pillay actually defended the article’s place on the site.


Verashni Pillay, Huffington Post South Africa’s Editor In Chief

Pillay stated, “we hope, as reads continue to rack up on this blog, that those who are tempted to fire off an angry email to us would first engage with the underlying analysis in Garland’s blog.”

Pillay also declared that “Garland’s underlying analysis about the uneven distribution of wealth and power in the world is pretty standard for feminist theory.”

Despite SA HuffPo’s Editor-in-Chief’s agreement with the editorial’s thesis, my own guess is that the editorial was written by some Alt-Right troll to pull HuffPo’s chain.

23 Sep 2015

Renaming Yale

,

The Pundits are among the suspects.

Schwarzman1
Formerly Berkeley College

Schwarzman2
Formerly Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

Schwarzman3
Formerly Davies Auditorium

Schwarzman4
Formerly Jonathan Edwards College

28 Aug 2013

Japanese Office Prank

, ,

17 Sep 2011

Trinity College Profile Removed

, , ,

The Irish Times reports:

Trinity College Dublin has said it is taking seriously an incident in which a profile page, complete with image, was inserted on its website for a fake staff member named ‘Dr Conan T. Barbarian’.

The page appeared on the TCD School of English website last night and could still be accessed until about 9.30am, at which stage it was removed.

Screen shots of the page were still being circulated online, however.

The staff listings were also amended to include the name of ‘Dr Barbarian’, while his own personal page bore an image of actor Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan guise from the 1982 movie.

His full title and academic qualifications were given as: “Dr Conan T. Barbarian, B.A.(Cimmeria) Ph.D. (UCD). F.T.C.D. (Long Room Hub Associate Professor in Hyborian Studies and Tyrant Slaying).”

His profile indicated he had been “ripped from his mother’s womb on the corpse-strewn battlefields of his war-torn homeland, Cimmeria, and has been preparing for academic life ever since”.

“A firm believer in the dictum that ‘that which does not kill us makes us stronger,’ he took time out to avenge the death of his parents following a sojourn pursuing his strong interest in Post-Colonial theory at the Sorbonne.”

The profile went on to say Dr Barbarian completed his PhD, entitled ‘To Hear The Lamentation of Their Women: Constructions of Masculinity in Contemporary Zamoran Literature’ at UCD and was appointed to the School of English in 2006, “after sucessfully decapitating his predecessor during a bloody battle which will long be remembered in legend and song”.

“In 2011/12, he will be teaching on the following courses: ‘The Relevance of Crom in the Modern World’, ‘Theories of Literature’, ‘Vengeance for Beginners’,

‘Deciphering the Riddle of Steel’ and ‘D.H. Lawrence’. …

A spokeswoman for Trinity College Dublin said the amendment to the website was not a “hacking”.

She said the site had not been externally hacked, but said she could not comment further as she did not have the full facts.

The page had been immediately removed once it came to the college’s attention.

Hat tip to John J. Miller.

28 Aug 2011

Unusual Traffic

, , , , , ,


Alas! It was Photoshop, not Irene, that delivered the shark into that street.

The caption for the photo said: This picture was taken in Puerto Rico shortly after Hurricane Irene ravaged the island. Yes, that’s a shark swimming down the street next to a car, and this is exactly why authorities in NYC are warning people not to go swimming in flood waters after a hurricane. Sharks go where fish go, and fish go where water goes, and if that water (and those subsequent fish) happen to be right outside your front door, then guess where that freakin’ shark’s going to be?!

The Washington Post spoiled all the fun by identifying the shark photo used for the pranked image.

Real source of shark.

08 Aug 2009

Woman Wants to Marry Playground Ride

, , , , , , ,


The happy couple

The Telegraph reports all this deadpan, but I grew up near Knoebel’s Amusement Park, so I’m familiar with the local provincial Pennsylvania sense of humor. I think the young lady is pulling the media’s leg, and playfully mocking a certain politically correct cause.

Amy Wolfe, a US church organist who claims to have objectum sexuality, a condition that makes sufferers attracted to inanimate objects, plans to marry a magic carpet fairground ride.

This follows a “courtship”; of 3,000 rides over ten years with the 80ft gondola ride called 1001 Nachts.

Miss Wolfe, 33, from Pennsylvania, will change her surname to Weber after the manufacturer of the ride she travels 160 miles to visit 10 times per year, according to reports

“I love him as much as women love their husbands and know we’ll be together forever,” she said.

Miss Wolfe first fell for the ride when she was 13: “I was instantly attracted to him sexually and mentally.

“I wasn’t freaked out, as it just felt so natural, but I didn’t tell anyone about it because I knew it wasn’t ‘normal’ to have feelings for a fairground ride.”

Ten years later, she decided to go back to Knoebels Amusement Park to declare her love. She now sleeps with a picture of the ride on her ceiling and carries its spare nuts and bolts around to feel closer to it.

She claims to believe they share a fulfilling physical and spiritual relationship and does not get jealous when other people ride it.

02 Aug 2009

Dissolving Bikini

, , ,


Austrian Times
reports on an intriguing prank gift item from Germany.

A bikini that dissolves in water has outraged killjoy women’s rights campaigners.

The saucy thong swimsuit – sold as the perfect present for dumped boyfriends – looks like a real bikini but disappears completely after just a few seconds in water.

Sellers in Germany bill the Get Naked costume as a chance for men to get their own back after a break-up.

But women’s rights campaigner Rosmarie Zapfl stormed: “It is an absolute insult to women that this has been invented.”

Revenge Shop web-site.

Karen notes that women commonly wash swim suits before wearing them, and wonders who would accept a bikini from an ex-boy friend?

More likely, a few mischievous guys will be presenting these to soon-to-be ex-girl friends.


Your are browsing
the Archives of Never Yet Melted in the 'Pranks' Category.











Feeds
Entries (RSS)
Comments (RSS)
Feed Shark