The Fake MySpace Story: Who Got Duped

At some point in the last 24 hours, this satirical news article probably landed in your mailbox. For those of you who didn’t get it, here’s the mass-forwarded hilarity you missed:

Los Angeles, CA – A thirteen-year-old girl posing as a record executive on MySpace has lured several bands to Los Angeles with promises of a record contract…Members of Fonix Cat, a neopunk-country band from Kansas City, were the latest victims. They packed up their gear and headed west hoping for a record contract; instead they left with shattered dreams.

Ashley Morgan, 13, has used her ‘sonymusicexec’ MySpace profile to lure several bands to her Los Angeles home. Ashley was grounded so she couldn’t talk to us on the phone for this report.

So, clearly a joke, right? Anyone with even the slightest experience reading standard news-wire copy would have noticed the tell-tale signs that this was a fake: The over-reaching “shattered dreams” statement, the lack of a state abbreviation after “Kansas City,” and the fact that its “source,” BBspot news, is noted as “the world’s greatest tech humour site” in its “About” section.

And yet everyone seemed to fall for it. In fact, the fake music-executive’s MySpace page now has 22 friends, including a couple of hopefully-in-on-the-joke bands, and one guy who notes that “i hate major labels, but you represent what is wrong so well, old man.”

We hope he’s kidding. But even if he is, the music industry is in such a bad state, no one even thinks it strange that a record-label honcho calls musicians “dumb as dirt.”