What Why is a Hoax?
by Ezra Pompos
When mom told a bedtime story at night, we didn't throw off the covers and accuse her of lying. When we read a book we enjoy, we don't send the author an angry letter upon finding it's fiction. When we see a movie we don't storm out of the theater and demand a refund because its events didn't actually occur.
So why did an event like this one take place?
If you don't have time for the video, I'll summerize. It's an interview with a creator on YouTube who hopped on the trend of creating "top ten most..." style videos, only his were different. Every single piece of info in his videos was fabricated by him. Now, the project wasn't meant to trick people, but to make fun of channels who do post this kind of content unironically. His channel gained traction quicky, and eventually he came up with an idea for a story about himself in which paranormal creatures called "black eyed children" started showing up and causing him trouble after he made a video about them. This brought him wild success, and people were responding well: the were playing along. What he didn't know was that many of these people were not just "playing along." They wholehartedly believed in his story. Upon discovering that he "tricked them" (which was very upsetting to him, as this was never his intent) viewers became angry, going so far as to dox and threaten him.
But this isn't the first time someone has used modern media platforms to present a piece of fiction as if it were really happening. In fact this type of content has become quite popular, and many people love it! There's even a name for it: ARG. Acording to Computer Hope "An ARG, or alternate reality game, is a type of game that mixes real-world elements with gameplay. Most of these games are based on the idea that there's something bigger happening in the world that nobody but the players realize. To play an ARG, the player must stumble upon hidden messages leading them to a website or other locations with further clues, riddles, and puzzles that help explain the story. In many ways, an ARG is like a complex scavenger hunt with complex puzzles." The idea is that everyone gets to play along, right from their PCs! And as someone who enjoys ARGs myself, I would say the fact no one comes out and says the ARG isn't real is half the fun. It allows us to suspend our disbeleif and imerse ourselves in the game. It's a form of pretend play.
Another name that has popped up for this type of content is unfiction. It's hard to find a more official definition for unfiction as it seems to be even newer than ARGs, but the idea is the same as an ARG, telling a story as if it is real. Unlike an ARG, however, unfiction requires less audience participation. There aren't puzzles to solve or mysteries to uncover. My favorite piece of unfiction work is a YouTube series called Diminish. Diminish is a webseries in which a man named Will plays through a videogame made for him by his dying twin sister. As the series continues, we learn more about who Will is, who his sister was, and the process of greiving someone close. While Will and his sister don't exist, they still tell a beautiful and compelling story that relies on this specific format for its effectiveness.
But if none of these stories are hoaxes, what is a hoax? Well, by famous historical journalist Curtis MacDougall's definition, a hoax is something purposefully created to act as truth although it is false. A hoax is also not the same as a simple error in judgement. Folklorist, writer, and professor Jan Harold Burnvand adds that urban legends or jokes passed along in good faith do not count. He states that he believes the term hoax should be reserved "for cases where there is a provable dishonest and conscious attemt to deceive."
In my mind that leaves these genres of storytelling I've discussed up for debate. Of course, I would debate from the side that they're not hoaxes, as their intent is to tell a story as opposed to decieve. Still, one could argue that no matter what the author's intent, these stories thrive on their ability to deciecve. Afterall, the black eyed children story wouldn't have gotten so popular if no one believed it. Some might take issue with unfiction in particular because it seems to prey on our most human emotions- for example, when the creator of the black eyed children story wrote in a plot point in which he lost a child. But Seirea, the creator of diminish (the person who essentially "plays" will), offers something else for us to consider...
(I think this whole video is great but the portion from about 2:50 to 3:50 where Seirea interupts themself is the important part)
The point of fiction is to move us, to make us feel something, and unfiction can be extremely successful at that! This does come with a caveat though. In order to incorperate this type of storytelling into our lexicon, we need to learn how to be more discerning in our understanding of fact vs fiction. And this isn't a bad thing in any way. The argument could be made that incorperating this type of storytelling makes it harder for us to differentiate the truth, but I would respond that we are going to be faced with fiction presented as fact for the rest of our lives. People will created hoaxes (actual hoaxes!) lies and misinformation no matter what, so we're going to have to change the way we understand the world. Sure it might be annoying or difficult, but I think unfiction and ARGs are something beautiful that has come out of this mess!
If ARG's and Unfiction interest you, I'd like to offer some more stories you might enjoy! A quick warning, many of these include dark themes as is characteristic of the genre.
Works Cited
Brunvand, Jan Harold. Encyclopedia of Urban Legends. W.W. Norton & Co., 2001.
Computer Hope. "What Is an Arg?" What Is an ARG?, Computerhope.com, 6 Nov. 2021, https://www.computerhope.com/jargon/a/arg.htm.
MacDougall, Curtis Daniel. Hoaxes. Dover Publications, 1968.