Fake news has been getting a bad rap, and it’s about time too. But, as this column will hopefully (and helpfully!) illustrate, not all fake news is created equal. (Equally?) Anyway, it’s not all the same. And while your pesky Fly on the Wall trucks primarily in reality, news parodies have always been one of the site’s most popular components. Occasionally we fool people, but that’s never the goal, and unlike all that other fake news out there, you can tell our facts from our fiction by the “parody” tab at the top of the page.
Judging by this year’s most liked and shared parodies Fly on the Wall readers are a twisted, artistically-minded bunch with a taste for dumb puns and dark slapstick. You’re my kind of people and, in order of ascending popularity, your favorites were…
Rock on.
5. When Memphians started painting rocks and hiding them like Easter eggs…
Memphis Facing Severe Unpainted Rock Crisis
It’s 10 a.m. on a Saturday morning and 87-year-old Tony Lancilunghi would normally be roaming the city with his rolling shopping cart in search of the city’s flattest, roundest stones. Lancilunghi is a competitive stone skipper, who hadn’t missed a day’s practice since he was seven years old. Until last week, anyway, when the old timer says he took up whittling.
“I didn’t know there was some rule about taking more than one,” he spits defiantly. “I saw some of them were painted up to look like the California Raisins, but I don’t give two hoots about any of that hippity-hop mess.” Click to continue...
A very serious person.
4. When people thought a Black Lives Matters protest was too disruptive…
Polite East Memphis Demonstration Goes Unnoticed
Members of the Nice Lives Matter movement have expressed mild, thoughtfully worded disappointment that their orderly, single-file march down Tuckahoe Rd from S. Goodlett to Perkins Ext., and back again, was completely ignored and accomplished nothing. Click to continue…
Scene of the crime.
3. When a Memphis tiger did nothing for the city’s reputation…
Memphis Zoo’s Tiger Says He Isn’t Sorry
Mohan, the male Sumatran tiger on loan to the Sacramento Zoo from Memphis says he doesn’t feel the least bit bad about actions resulting in the death of female Sumatran tiger Baha.
“Am I sorry for killing her,” Mohan asks rhetorically. “Well, it’s regrettable, I suppose, that some people’s feelings have been hurt as a result of what happened yesterday. But c’mon. I’m a fucking tiger. I have the right to kill any potential mate, especially if she smells weird.” Click to continue…
BFFs no more.
2. When dicks go rogue…
Zoo President Shot After Falling Into Gorilla Enclosure
Gorilla keeper Inna Myst says her team of large primate experts responded appropriately after Memphis Zoo President Chuck Brady fell into Primate Canyon’s gorilla exhibit. “We understand the public’s concern,” Myst says. “We shot the chief executive of a major zoological attraction and Memphis deserves an explanation. I just want everybody to understand that a lot of thought goes into our contingency plans and once Brady fell into the gorilla exhibit, taking him out was the only option that made sense.” Click to continue…
When the going gets weird…
1. When Donald Trump was elected POTUS…
Trump Taps Prince Mongo For Secretary of the Interior
In a surprise 3 a.m. announcement President-elect Donald J. Trump said notorious alien/Memphian Prince Mongo would join his cabinet as Secretary of the Interior. Click to continue…
