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The man behind the Back to the Future hoax that circulated the web on Wednesday said the viral incident was “just an accident.”
If you’re like us, you fell for that Photoshopped image that claimed today was the “future date” Doc set the DeLorean to in the film Back to the Future. Although the photo says characters such as Doc and Marty McFly traveled from June 27, 2012 from Oct. 26, 1985, the actual date used in the film is Oct. 21, 2015. Not only was the picture shared thousands of times and became a viral hit in just a few hours, it wasn’t the first time thesame hoax happened.
So how did we fall for this again? Here’s what happened.
Steve Berry, a social media manager for mobile checkout company Simply Tap, designed the image to promote the Back to the Future trilogy Blu-ray box set for his client. The photo — which used Wednesday’s date as “the future” — was a deliberate reference to the same hoax that was accidentally started by Total Filmin 2010.
“We promoted the image fully confident in the knowledge that everyone was familiar with the original hoax from a couple of years ago,” Berry told Mashable. “We figured that no one would fall for the same joke twice, so the caption was deliberately replicated it word for word so people would get the reference.”
But the new image started to develop a life of its own. It was reposted on several Facebook pages, including the Facebook page of craft company Colour Me Fun, which received more than 10,000 shares, nearly 1,000 Likes and 300 comments.
Although the hoax may have ruffled a few feathers on the Internet today, the creator of the accidental hoax said he wishes he would have included the client’s web address:
“Just think of the traffic I’ve failed to gather,” Berry said.
