Sorpresa, sorpresa

In the Mid 90`s, Antena 3 created a program called "Surprise, surprise". This famous late night show consisted on requests by families and friends of anonymous for a surprise live from the set people. The joys could go from meeting a celebrity or to be reunited with dear ones who haven't seen each other in years.

This began as presented by Isabel Gemio, but in 1999 was in front of the same Concha Velasco, which "surprised" by the controversy was described as follows:

Was playing the program with a hidden camera in room of a girl , the famous guest was Puerto Rican singer Ricky Martin who was hiding in the closet, the girl's parents had decided to make a surprise to meet his idol in person, but here are surprised when they (Ricky and Concha), little girl appears naked with jam spreading on his genitals and calling Ricky, but not to the singer, but his dog named alike. 

- Then Ricky came out of the closet, the singer, not the dog.

- Close up of Ricky “pissed as a female monkey”. (cabreado como una mona)

- Close up embarrassed face girl.

-  Close up Ricky the singer, not the dog, furious.

- Close up smacking dog.

- Close up of dislocated parents.

- Close up Concha Velasco indignant giving way to advertise. (Some people said, that was Isabel Gemio who hosted the program that day, but by that time was "Shell" Velasco).

What made this information seen real? The rumour was built with all the precision of urban legends, credible facts, narrated by people assuring that it was true, and with completely secure, familiar places and starring normal people to whom something abnormal happens.

Obviously this was a fake, an Urban Legend. What demystified this fact was, that Antena 3 had to provide evidence that the recording did not exist to safeguard its image and because the prosecution of minors intervened owing to the impact of information on the population.

The success achieved was due to it being a well known program and given that it was aired at Sunday nights, when most were asleep because they had to get up early the next day, this contribute to it being credible.

That enabled everyone to said "I saw it, when nobody does", plus the dissemination added by radio as "hablar por hablar" and over if you add our intrinsic morbid nature in our genetic information, you get the perfect cocktail for success.

This fake has even similarities with other fakes! There's a story compiled in a book by a folklorist writer named Jan Harold Brunvard, an eminence in term of urban legends and countless books published about it, such as "Fabulous story book of urban Legends: too good to be true ".

This book, published in 1999, compiles large amount of material that the author had previously published in magazines and newspapers, mostly letters from people who claimed to have seen or heard an apparently true story that never would have been upheld.

Thus, in North America the story said that some workmates were preparing a surprise party for a single friend, hidden in the basement and when they came after she got home, naked and smeared in peanut butter, were found maintaining sexual relations with his dog.

Moral implications. In February 1999 the association (PRODENI) pro right of the children complaint with the prosecution of minors this event, which then had to withdraw the claim.

This event shows that often we judge without evidence and without even crime, this is added other moral implications such as the violation of the honor and intimacy of a famous person linked to a surreal story or the damage done to the television station .

Could it be better? This urban legend is nearly perfect, it has all the ingredients of fiction that wish to pass in reality inhabits in our subconscious that perversion, but could be added or removed some characters to make it more credible, for example:

-Remove the famous, jam and dog and add a brother.

-The parents could have gone to the program to prepare a surprise (Macguffin) to their children at home, but when they arrive they were kissing passionately and they were surprised by the cameras, the audience, the hostess and their parents.

- Close up of incestuous, open-mouthed.

- Close up of dislocated parents.

- Close up hostess with the red face.

- Advertising.

After supposedly being issued incest on the television, which was forced to delete pictures, the family were compelled to emigrate and to live in anonymity by shame, because these things in a chaste and prudish society in the 90s was not acceptable...

The fake Hero

A man struggles to dodge the bullets as he is in the middle of a warzone. A young boy, probably around nine, runs towards a car, or what´s left of it, but he receives two bullet hits on the back and fall to the ground. Suddenly, he rises up again, and arrive to the car, where a small girl was hiding, and carries her, saving her for an almost certain death. In the background there are some barrels painted as the Syrian flag, and we can hear voices speaking in Syrian “God is great!”, so, even though the exact location is not clear, it is evident that this footage was shot during the Syrian conflict.

The truth is that this video was shot in the same film set where movies like Gladiator were shot.

Last November, a video claiming to be amateur footage of the Syrian conflict was uploaded to YouTube. Given the viral status it got, its author confirmed that it was fake. It was shot in a film set in Malta by a group of Norwegian filmmakers captained by film director Lars Klevberg using funds by Norwegian Film Institute (NFI). 

"By publishing a clip that could appear to be authentic we hoped to take advantage of a tool that's often used in war; make a video that claims to be real. We wanted to see if the film would get attention and spur debate, first and foremost about children and war.”

Klevberg certainly got its way, as the video reached 5 millon views in less than a week.

Although it was unclear from which side of the war were they, the images of a boy getting shot and rescuing a small girl from a shootout surely raised awareness about the cruelty of this war, and how children were affected. It also opened a debate about its legitimacy. It was certainly suspicious, as the boy, shot twice, is then able to keep running and appears to have no sign of blood. In the words of producer John Einar Hagen, these were small clues to make clear that the video was fake. Naturally, the video, once it was revealed to be fake, received very mixed opinions, being specially criticized about the frivolity which they treat one of the worst modern conflicts.

The only thing sure is that the main goal of Klevberg, to make people think in a real problem that we tend to forget, was accomplished. It doesn´t matter if in the end it was more a secondary topic on a wider discussion (the faking of information as a mean to get positive ends), this case reminded people that the conflict is still there and thousands of children are dying. 

And that wouldn´t had been possible without the use of image. In a world where we are bombarded with information, it is the visuals, the things we can actually see, that get our attention. We don´t care much about facts that tell that nearly ten percent of the casualties between civilians and combatants are children, but we will instinctively click on a video about a boy being a hero. One of those is real, the other not. But both could be real, and if that was the case, it would have equally been the video, fake or not, that would have caught our attention.

Thea's wedding

“Hi! I’m Thea, I’m 12 years old and I am getting married.”

This is how the blog of this Norwegian little girl starts. She writes on the blog all her wedding arrangements from a month before the wedding, that would take place on October, 11^th. Thea will marry Geir, a man 25 years older than her.

The girl writes on her blog that her mother has arranged a wedding with a 37 years old man that Thea barely knows.

At the beginning, the girl seems happy and excited but with some doubts because she doesn’t know any other girl of her age married. Little by little she will write her doubts and fears.

Through Thea’s pictures we can see the process of choosing the wedding dress, the hairstyle and make-up, the church, the cakes, the rings… Moreover, in this blog, the girl is honest with her readers and writes that her mother wants her to have children as soon as possible; how she miss her friends, because she doesn’t have time to be with them due to the wedding, and she fears that she won’t see them again after it; how she has to give up on her dream of being a vet or how she fears the wedding night after looking lingerie on the internet.

This blog become one of the most followed blogs in Norway, reaching half a million daily visits. The case alerted society, which reacted calling the police and social services. Many people made protest in Norway trying to stop the wedding and trying to convince Thea to say no.

The Plan Norge NGO waited until the blog became viral to reveal that it was a campaign to aware people that almost 40.000 girls are force to get marry each day. This campaign had a global repercussion, appearing in many newspaper and social networks worldwide under the hashtag #stoppbryllupet ("stop the wedding").

  

 

(Click on the image to go to the source)

The fake continued, even though it was known that this was a fake wedding, until the wedding date.

The wedding was a big event in which the church was full of people (many of them reader of the blog) supporting the #stoppbryllupet and Thea to say no.

After the words: "Will you take Geir to be your lawfully wedded husband?" Thea said: "No". And she left the church.

The campaign was very successful, if we understand success as the fact that it reached millions of people. It became viral and alerted the population. Everybody got mad because a young girl was going to marry an adult man. On the other hand, we will have to wait to know if it was a really successful campaign. Thousands of girls are forced to get marry everyday and governments seem not to care about it. The day something changes we could say it was successful.

Besides that, it was really smart to make this fake in Norway, as it is considered an advanced and high-level country; it is very shocking that the parents of that girl (and also authorities) could allow that marriage. If the NGO had chosen another country, maybe, it won't have been as viral as it was, and have the relevance and impact it had.

The fact that this Norwegian little girl was going to get marry showed the reality for many other girls in the world. Thea was lucky and she could say No, unfortunately, this does not happen in many onther cases.