(WCMH) – A surprising number of Twitter users fell for a hoax that claimed President Trump spends hours of every day watching the ‘Gorilla Channel.’
Thursday, Cartoonist Ben Ward tweeted a screenshot of a parody excerpt from Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.
The parody excerpt claims President Trump forced staff to create a makeshift ‘Gorilla Channel’ that streams nothing but video of gorillas fighting, 24 hours a day.
The joke went right over the heads of some people.
{“url”:”https://twitter.com/TimRunsHisMouth/status/949354151649177602″,”author_name”:”Tim Young”,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/TimRunsHisMouth”,”html”:”u003Cblockquote class=”twitter-tweet”u003Eu003Cp lang=”en” dir=”ltr”u003EAnother round of applause for at least these 4 blue checkmarks who thought the Gorilla Channel was real….u003Ca href=”https://twitter.com/ericgarland?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”u003E@ericgarlandu003C/au003E u003Ca href=”https://twitter.com/funder?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”u003E@funderu003C/au003E u003Ca href=”https://twitter.com/samanthamaiden?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”u003E@samanthamaidenu003C/au003E u003Ca href=”https://twitter.com/shadihamid?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”u003E@shadihamidu003C/au003Eu003Cbru003Eu003Cbru003EGreat work u003Ca href=”https://twitter.com/pixelatedboat?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”u003E@pixelatedboatu003C/au003E! u003Ca href=”https://t.co/LALxGiFRmN”u003Epic.twitter.com/LALxGiFRmNu003C/au003Eu003C/pu003E- Tim Young (@TimRunsHisMouth) u003Ca href=”https://twitter.com/TimRunsHisMouth/status/949354151649177602?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”u003EJanuary 5, 2018u003C/au003Eu003C/blockquoteu003Enu003Cscript async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″u003Eu003C/scriptu003En”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″}
The ‘Gorilla Channel’ was trending on Twitter most of the day Friday. Animal Planet and Netflix even got in on the joke.
{“url”:”https://twitter.com/AnimalPlanet/status/949384706285621248″,”author_name”:”AnimalPlanet”,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/AnimalPlanet”,”html”:”u003Cblockquote class=”twitter-tweet”u003Eu003Cp lang=”en” dir=”ltr”u003EWhat makes for a Gorilla Channel? A lot of eating, sleeping, and, of course, playtime! u003Ca href=”https://t.co/cnXOSSY07z”u003Epic.twitter.com/cnXOSSY07zu003C/au003Eu003C/pu003E- AnimalPlanet (@AnimalPlanet) u003Ca href=”https://twitter.com/AnimalPlanet/status/949384706285621248?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”u003EJanuary 5, 2018u003C/au003Eu003C/blockquoteu003Enu003Cscript async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″u003Eu003C/scriptu003En”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″}
{“url”:”https://twitter.com/netflix/status/949449196536393728″,”author_name”:”Netflix US”,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/netflix”,”html”:”u003Cblockquote class=”twitter-tweet”u003Eu003Cp lang=”en” dir=”ltr”u003Eplease stop calling our customer service hotline to ask if we have The Gorilla Channelu003C/pu003E- Netflix US (@netflix) u003Ca href=”https://twitter.com/netflix/status/949449196536393728?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”u003EJanuary 6, 2018u003C/au003Eu003C/blockquoteu003Enu003Cscript async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″u003Eu003C/scriptu003En”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″}
Ward later changed his name on Twitter to make it perfectly clear that the entire thing was a joke.
{“url”:”https://twitter.com/pixelatedboat/status/949118287480111104″,”author_name”:”pixelated boat [ASMR] binaural ~4 hours~”,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/pixelatedboat”,”html”:”u003Cblockquote class=”twitter-tweet”u003Eu003Cp lang=”en” dir=”ltr”u003Etfw you parody a guy making up shit about Trump but people believe it so you become part of the problemu003C/pu003E- pixelated boat [ASMR] binaural ~4 hours~ (@pixelatedboat) u003Ca href=”https://twitter.com/pixelatedboat/status/949118287480111104?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”u003EJanuary 5, 2018u003C/au003Eu003C/blockquoteu003Enu003Cscript async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″u003Eu003C/scriptu003En”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″}
To add a new wrinkle into the story, HBO’s VICE News went ahead and created a ‘Gorilla Channel’ of their own on Periscope.
