Psychic-Facebook post "predicting" Orlando shootings goes viral: Illuminati or Troll?
Image: sketchport/ºGibbzº
Do you believe in magic~ In a young girls heart?
In light of Sunday's heart-wrenching tragedy of the deadliest mass shooting in US history, you'd be surprised how much people wanted a spark of magic to reanimate a nation gripped with solemn sorrow. People got more than they asked for when a Facebook user by the name of Pablo Reyes posted a status dated December 27, 2015, which apparently predicted multiple major events of 2016 ranging from the death of Muhammad Ali and Prince to last week's Orlando Pulse gay nightclub massacre.
Pablo Reyes's clairvoyant Facebook status/Image: Facebook
Let the shock and awe sink in. In one, albeit long sentence, Reyes has taken the mantle of internet Nostradamus and takes us on an emotional roller coaster ride down memory-lane. The shooting of the Cincinnati Zoo's Harambe the Gorilla, the tragic passing of a musical legend and a boxing titan, the untimely death of a beloved gladiator and the harrowing tragedy that claimed the lives of 50 innocent souls, were all mentioned within Reyes' SNS oracle. With great powers come large cronies as the post quickly went viral, currently flaunting more than 200,000 shares and 145,000 reactions.
Does a modern day Corinthian clairvoyant live among us? If true, only two more events are yet to materialize. Are we to expect the inauguration of the US's first female president and simultaneous death of her political rival, possibly due to the after-shock of a shattered ego? Unfortunately, all things online that are NSFW-level too far-fetched, bizarre, horrifying or glorious to be true, are probably acts of attention-whoring trolling. So relax and put the illuminati memorabilia back into your drawers where they rightfully belong.
Reyes recently worked in Huzlers/Image: Buzzfeed
A former employee of Huzlers, a faux-article generating alternative entertainment site, Reyes admitted to faking the status in the trademark non-apologetic bravado we have all become accustomed to from redditors and other online trollers. “I feel like people — I don’t want to call people dumb — but I think it’s up to the people to kind of make the decisions about what they hear and what they’re being told,” he said in an interview with buzzfeed.
Reyes's secret revealed./Image: Mic/Facebook
The mechanics of the dupe are quite simple. If you see the edit history of Reyes' post, you can see that Reyes' status was, anti-climactically, posted on June 12, 2016, at 10:22 PM, well after the occurrences of any of the events that the status claimed of predicting beforehand(except of course the Clinton-Trump prediction which we must wait on for another 5 months).
Reyes's secret revealed 2/Image: Mic/Facebook
As much as we mortals were quick to believe that a godsent prophet lives among us and better yet, he's internet-friendly, much to our dismay, being gullible is a surefire way of getting trolled. After all, all's fair in love, war and Facebook. You too can easily play seer with one of your dimwitted friends by clicking on the little clock icon when typing a status and simply setting a time to a distant past, possibly even before the invention of Facebook itself.
So easy even YOU can do it/Image: Mic/Facebook
So, this incident was all caused by an internet troll. As disappointing as this may be, and as surprising as it is that so many people fell for the oldest trick in the book, it's a telling indicator that this year has been one hell of a roller-coaster ride. Though I think levity has found the Orlando massacre a bit too soon, we shall all be eager to see if Reyes was unknowingly more prophetic than he was aware of in regards to the presidential elections.
Also, the status-date altering gimmick is a good trick to keep in mind when you forget to wish your significant other a happy birthday. Just pull the Reyes trick and argue the hell out of the silent treatment by convincing your partner that your congratulations just got lost in the wave of other "Happy birthday XOXO" messages. I guess we have Reyes to thank for that.
