Viral

This guy’s fake tweet went viral and people love the way he was caught out

Picture:
Picture:
Twitter/Screengrab

People love those fortuitous news stories.

Like when a beloved stuffed toy is found and returned with photos of how it had gone on a trip around a city, which someone then posts to the internet.

Or alternatively when a phone is found by a celebrity and is returned, but not before their selfie from said phone is posted to Facebook.

They're always a bit too good to be true.

Take this tweet for example:

What a lovely little tale!

It's a shame Twitter could quickly work out it was entirely false.

The original picture came from a Pinterest pin made by Barbara Olsen, who captioned the image:

I decided I should put a new picture of myself up on my art board...I took a selfie "first one with my IPad / mini, not bad for an old lady...2015, I love my horned rim glasses. The painting behind is also a fav. I will try to get a pic of it.

(Which is actually quite sweet. We hope that's not fake too.)

People quickly pointed out he left the geotag on and the Central Library is in Manchester, not in Sale. The library had also been closed for two and a half hours at the time of tweeting.

Michael has been called out for his (amateurish) fakery. A lot.

In fact people are openly mocking him.

Now there's only one thing left to do...

What have we learned, children?

That fabricating tales for retweets is a bad idea, especially if you really make a hash of it.

More: 14 of the stupidest things that have ever happened on the internet

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