There are two kinds of media hoaxes. In the first, an Average Citizen purposefully dupes a poor, innocent Media Member into broadcasting a story they know is false. (See: Balloon Boy) In the second, said Media Member turns the tables, completely fabricating a news item and then using the power of the press to trick the world (a world that includes other Media Members) into believing it to be true.The second kind of media hoax is a journalist’s version of a revenge fantasy. And therefore awesome. So that’s the hoax we’ll busy ourselves with today.(Note: Most of these pranks get published on April 1, because duh. But an April Fool’s Day hoax is like an approaching army in the Revolutionary War: you can see it coming from a mile away. So I’ll mostly be avoiding these holiday tie-in cons in favor of their sneakier, unpredictable cousins.)The Hoax:
GQ Spoofs the Hilton Sisters
In August of 2002, hotel heiress Paris Hilton was still a year away from releasing her night-vision film debut. But thanks to a busy schedule of doing…whatever it was that made her famous, Hilton and her sister Nicky were still recognizable enough commodities to be parodied.Running with the rich girls gone wild angle, GQ ran a seven-page spread detailing the exploits of Frenchie and Dallas, the Marriot Sisters. Dropping a “t” off the last name of the hotel chain, the men’s mag detailed the sisters’ exploits: expensive shopping sprees, fake IDs to get into the hottest New York nightclubs and a posse referred to as “the so-called DAT pack, the Daughters of the Affluent and Tony.”Included amongst the made-up sisters roster of famous friends: “potato-chip heiress Chloe Utz, hygiene queen Evie Massengill, Jan Dunkin’ of Dunkin’ Donuts fame, and Gwen Tylenol, who curiously isn’t the daughter of anyone famous.”Who Got Duped: An unknown number of readers, including a few movie studios and book publishers interested in the Marriot girls’ story. One man who was most certainly not duped, however, was Denver Marriott, fake Frenchie and Dallas’s very real father who, along with being C.E.O. of the company was also a devout Mormon, and none too happy with the way his family name was abused by GQ.Hoax #2:
