Thousands of college students made a YouTube hit out of a video that appears to show a University of North Carolina couple breaking up, in embarrassingly public fashion, on Valentine’s Day. The clip — which featured back-and-forth accusations of philandering, a cheering crowd, an a cappella group crooning the Dixie Chicks’ “Not Ready to Make Nice,” and an awful lot of cursing — has now been outed as a hoax, according to the Associated Press.
Truth be told, that’s not exactly a startling revelation: Most of the video appears to be pretty obviously staged. The clip’s protagonist, a 22-year-old student named Ryan Burke, said the YouTube sensation was nothing more than a stunt intended to demonstrate how quickly information can travel in online communities. By that standard, it’s pretty clear he succeeded. —Brock Read
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