In the wake of the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, a strange rumor began circulating online. It claimed that fitness personality John Basedow, known for his “Fitness Made Simple” commercials, had been vacationing in Phuket, Thailand, and was presumed dead.
This, thankfully, was not true. About a month after the disaster, a clear message appeared on the front page of the “Fitness Made Simple” website. It reassured fans that John Basedow was alive, well, and had never even set foot in Thailand.
Of course, the actual tsunami was a tragic event. However, the fact that John Basedow didn’t die in it highlights a bizarre aspect of human behavior. Someone, somewhere, upon hearing about this immense tragedy, decided to invent a story about John Basedow’s death and actively spread it online. The real question is: why? What motivates someone to create such a hoax?
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Years later, the memory of the John Basedow death hoax resurfaced during a conversation at a basketball tournament. While watching a game, a friend and I were discussing how easily misinformation, like the Basedow rumor, could spread, especially before the era of ubiquitous smartphones. To illustrate this point, during a lull in the game, my friend picked up his BlackBerry and loudly announced, “Wow, Clyde Drexler died. Police suspect foul play.”
The reaction was immediate. People nearby overheard and expressed shock and disbelief. The false news rippled through the stands, the grim rumor of “Clyde Drexler… Clyde Drexler…” echoing through the crowd.
Perhaps fabricating someone’s death is never justifiable. And maybe confessing my role in the “Great Clyde Drexler Death Hoax of 2006” isn’t something to be proud of. The point is, it happened. We successfully convinced a number of people that Clyde Drexler had passed away, simply to observe the process of rumor propagation.
Hoaxes take many forms, and their motivations vary. Some are clearly self-serving. The Manti Te’o scandal, with the fictional Lennay Kekua, was created to enhance Te’o’s public image. Kellyanne Conway’s fabricated “Bowling Green Massacre” served a xenophobic political agenda. The reasons behind these hoaxes are relatively transparent.
However, the digital age, and particularly events like the recent pandemic, have given rise to more perplexing hoaxes. Several baffling rumors related to the pandemic have been shared with me by well-meaning friends and family. One early rumor, shortly after the NBA shutdown, claimed that New York City was preparing to quarantine Manhattan by closing all bridges and tunnels.
This rumor seemed like a distorted version of reality. The city was preparing for a significant shutdown, and perhaps this was misinterpreted into a complete sealing off of Manhattan. It was clearly illogical – isolating millions without essential access would be catastrophic. The NYPD quickly debunked this rumor on social media.
Another persistent hoax, circulating since January, involves surgical masks. An online image falsely claimed that surgical masks are reversible. It instructed sick individuals to wear them with the colored side out to “prevent transmission,” and healthy individuals to wear them with the colored side in to “prevent germs from penetrating.” This misinformation spread across languages and continents for months, despite being completely false. Surgical masks are not reversible and should always be worn with the colored side out by everyone.
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Ultimately, reflecting on the John Basedow death hoax and others, the core question remains unanswered: who creates these things, and why? Is it a misguided attempt to “improve” information, like the mask hoax? Is it intended to create chaos or division? Or, like the rumors about John Basedow and Clyde Drexler, are some hoaxes simply born from a desire to see if people will believe them? The internet provides fertile ground for misinformation, and the motivations behind its creation and spread remain a puzzling aspect of modern digital life.
