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Girl Quits On Dry Erase Board a Hoax

Posted by samzenpus on from the take-this-job-and-shove-it dept.

suraj.sun writes "It's the same old story: young woman quits, uses dry erase board and series of pictures to let entire office know the boss is a sexist pig, exposes his love of playing FarmVille during work hours." Story seem too good to be true? It probably is, at least according to writer Peter Kafka. Even so, Jay Leno and Good Morning America have already reached out to "Jenny."

29 of 147 comments (clear)

  1. Old, and fake by Gruturo · · Score: 5, Informative

    Nice, story published hours after it was revealed to be a hoax / stunt: http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/11/elyse-porterfield/

    --

    Vacuum cleaners suck. Kings rule.
    1. Re:Old, and fake by Slippery+Pete · · Score: 4, Informative

      You are correct:

      http://thechive.com/2010/08/11/a-word-from-jenny-16-photos/

    2. Re:Old, and fake by BKX · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The real question is who didn't immediately know it was fake? I mean, "The Chive"? That soundss aan aweful lot like The Onion to me.

    3. Re:Old, and fake by gandhi_2 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Well, the part about her being a hot piece of ass are true.

      --
      THL phish sticks
    4. Re:Old, and fake by Idbar · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Holy! 15 minutes of fame with a hoax! Hot actress from LA name+lastname are very public now. Way to quickly boost your career!

    5. Re:Old, and fake by elrous0 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Wait a minute, an unemployed aspiring actress in L.A.???? Sounds fishy to me.

      --
      SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    6. Re:Old, and fake by Seumas · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I am astonished at the number of people who fell for this. It just proves that people have no operational critical thinking skills and just take anything they're fed as the truth. This is just a small example of how they treat more vital things like news of current events. If the AP wrote it or the local news anchor parroted it from a teleprompter, or a government organization released a statement, then it must all be true and taken at face value.

      As for this particular incident, it was instantly obvious to everyone with a two digit IQ that it was fake (it didn't last long enough or fool enough people to properly call this an actual hoax).

      What gave it away? Well, for one thing, are we supposed to believe that an HPOA like that was actually answering phones and doing some douchebag's dirty work in some great aspiration to be a stock broker? Hardly. In fact, I think my first sarcastic comment moments after this story first popped up in links from people I know was "Like a HPOA like that has to work as anything but a model".

      The second give-away is the clearly fake office.

      The third give-away is the quality of the photographs and the lighting.

      The the second and third elements above, they combine to give you that very strong "reality porn shoot" vibe. You could tell people that these photos are actually from some new OfficeBangBus website and everyone would believe it, because it just has that "fake staged office, professional lighting, pro-sumer camera" look to it.

      If the idiots behind this wanted the "hoax" to really succeed, they would have found a real office for her to stand in and snapped shots with a consumer point and click camera in whatever the real life office lighting was.

      The most offensive part is that this wasn't even a successful internet hoax. Most people immediately called it out as a fake and it wasn't even more than a few hours before it was proven to be a fake. And yet, nobody gives a fuck and all sorts of media outlets are going to give it coverage. What is there to cover? It's a non-story, other than on a few websites like Slashdot where it actually has some minor relevance. How does this deserve any television play? And what will their angle be? "So, you were a chick that was hired to stand there and be photographed in a failed internet hoax... uh...". I mean, if you were going to talk to ANYONE about it, why would it be the person who was the least involved? It's not like that girl came up with the idea or executed it. She responded to an audition call and stood there holding a whiteboard for a couple hours.

      I still believe this is far more than a mere "hoax" attempt. It seems clear to me that the guys behind it WANTED it to be known that it was a hoax as quickly as possible (if they had not admitted it so quickly, it would have dragged on a little longer). It sounds to me like they wanted to create a hoax AND get the attention for having created it all in one fell swoop. Either to get attention for themselves in some sort of "hey, we're a great media agency - hire us to promote your stuff!" attempt. . . . OR they were hired to do this by NBC or someone. Not as a "hoax" but as a "fake hoax" where the attempt wasn't to fool people, but to get everyone to pay attention to the girl so they could then announce that they're giving her a sit-com of her own and she's the star (which was already planned BEFORE the hoax was executed, surely).

      It'd be a lot like saying "we're a helium company and to promote our product, we're going to manufacturer an event where a little kid gets stuck in his dad's blimp and floats across the country and is covered live on the news".

    7. Re:Old, and fake by Cougar+Town · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Wow. You seriously know how to take just about all the fun out of something that was pretty entertaining. Sometimes you just need to shut the fuck and have a good laugh and realize that it doesn't even matter if it was real or a hoax.

      Enjoy life - don't analyze everything to the point that all meaning is lost.

    8. Re:Old, and fake by spamking · · Score: 3, Funny

      [crazy Britney Spears Fan] Leave Seumas alone! [/crazy Britney Spears Fan]

    9. Re:Old, and fake by Dexter+Herbivore · · Score: 2, Informative

      This got modded informative???? ARE YOU BLIND, PEOPLE!

    10. Re:Old, and fake by fishbowl · · Score: 2, Informative

      I think his point is rather that in some places, being "merely attractive" or "merely talented" aren't enough to ensure career prospects. It's not about obsession with superlatives, but more of a signal-to-noise problem.

      In Sweden you don't stand out for being six feet tall and blonde. In Russia, your 1700 chess rating means you sometimes win casual games.

      --
      -fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
    11. Re:Old, and fake by cp.tar · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I think his point is rather that in some places, being "merely attractive" or "merely talented" aren't enough to ensure career prospects. It's not about obsession with superlatives, but more of a signal-to-noise problem.

      In Sweden you don't stand out for being six feet tall and blonde. In Russia, your 1700 chess rating means you sometimes win casual games.

      Signal-to-noise ratio in LA must be pretty fucked up. Until Mad Men, Christina Hendricks was pretty much unknown and invisible. I mean, WTF?

      --
      Ignore this signature. By order.
  2. Fake by Swanktastic · · Score: 2, Informative

    This is known to be fake.

    1. Re:Fake by IBBoard · · Score: 3, Funny

      Why let the fact that it is fake stop it being promoted as the truth on Slashdot? ;)

    2. Re:Fake by roman_mir · · Score: 3, Funny

      No, your erection is also a hoax.

      --
      You can't handle the truth.
  3. Time to head to home depot... by Drakkenmensch · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That whiteboard is surprisingly clean, no smudges, no ghost lines of previous half-erased messages. Even the marker lines themselves are so clean you could swear they were drawn in mspaint rather than with an old dying black marker. But there's no way the internet would ever publish a HOAX, is there?

    1. Re:Time to head to home depot... by beelsebob · · Score: 2, Informative

      Just for future reference for you – the difference between permanent marker and dry wipe pen is that the dry wipe pens have a solvent in them to disolve the previous "ink". You can easily clean off permanent marker simply by drawing over it with dry wipe pen and immediately rubbing it out.

    2. Re:Time to head to home depot... by Glonoinha · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Use cheap vodka to clean whiteboards.
      It does a better job, is a lot cheaper, and doesn't leave the entire room choking on the incredibly nasty fumes like commercial whiteboard cleaner.

      Just put it in a regular spray bottle and don't tell anybody what it is - works like a champ. I haven't tried it on permanent marker, but I have a feeling it might just work...

      --
      Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
  4. She's an actress by HangingChad · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But still an HPOA.

    --
    That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
  5. As Teal'c would say by PmanAce · · Score: 4, Funny

    Indeed.

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    Tired of my customary (Score:1)
  6. The jetblue guy did a better job then this! by Joe+The+Dragon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The jetblue guy did a better job then this!

    1. Re:The jetblue guy did a better job then this! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      THAN this. FFS.

    2. Re:The jetblue guy did a better job then this! by hey! · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It was grabbing the beer on the way out that was the stroke of genius.

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      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    3. Re:The jetblue guy did a better job then this! by hey! · · Score: 2, Funny

      Yes. It appears he had a sudden stroke of Priorities.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  7. Re:I would have fired her too by darkitecture · · Score: 4, Funny

    G-R-A-M-M-A-R

    grammar

    --The Spelling Nazi

  8. Re:I would have fired her too by quitte · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Could someone please come up with sources?
    I looked it up in my school's grammar book and wikipedia. Both explicitly allow the combination of pronouns with contracted auxiliary verbs. But neither forbid the use of contracted auxiliary verbs with real nouns.
    I'm not a native speaker - but it definately doesn't sound clumsy to me. And this obviously is a situation where informal use of a language is quite appropriate.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contraction_(grammar)#English

  9. Just call Jenny up and ask... by otis+wildflower · · Score: 5, Funny

    867-5309

  10. /., you're trying too hard by dsoltesz · · Score: 5, Informative

    Dear /.,

    Please stop trying to be Digg/Reddit. It's really quite embarrassing. You post these stories way past their expiration date and provide no meaningful content to contribute enlightenment or lolz. We've already seen the story. We've already read the comments. Don't fall into the trap of pandering mainstream drivel to drive traffic. If my grandma knows about it, it doesn't belong on /. Even in "Idle" your readers expect more.

    Lovingly yours,
    #563978

  11. Re:HOPA != HPOA by xSander · · Score: 2, Informative

    If you had followed the story in the dryboard pictures, the misspelling was intentional.