That 'flying shark' video from last summer was just a drone with a fin glued on

I tracked down the original uploader on Discord and he admitted it. Said he did it for the likes and got 2 million views before it got debunked. Anyone else catch how the shadow didn't match the movement?

3 comments

3 Comments

angela_grant16d ago

That 2 million views number is actually way off. I saw the analytics from the guy who first shared the debunk thread on Reddit and the raw view count was closer to 800k before it got flagged. The rest of what you said tracks though. I remember watching it frame by frame and the shadow was a dead giveaway. The fin wobbled in a way that plastic wouldn't if it was real. Plus the water splashes didn't match up with the movement speed. People just wanted to believe it so bad. The guy probably got his 15 minutes and then some before the truth came out.

mila_flores816d ago

And yeah @angela_grant is right, you gotta check the view counts yourself before repeating them.

william_henderson9d ago

Whoa hold on, I think everybody's missing something obvious about that whole video. The guy who faked it said he did it for likes and views, but look at the timing. That video dropped right when a big tech company was pushing their new drone line hard in ads all over social media. I still remember the comments section had a ton of subtle shilling for that company's waterproof drone model. If he was just some random guy, why'd the video vanish so fast even before the debunking started spreading? A regular user usually sticks around to argue or get clout, but that account went dark completely within a day. Might be a coincidence, but it feels like somebody paid him to stir up buzz on purpose.