This Best-Selling Novel Was A Total Hoax!

[@david_is_achu]

This man single handedly trolled the entirety of New York State in the 50s. He’s a national hero

[@TJ-bu9zk]

When people say "thats just a conspiracy theory! Do you how many people need to be in on it for it to be true?" Only a very small number... the rest just need to be complicit in perpetuating it.

[@tachobrenner]

@@TJ-bu9zk Screw it, man, unlike the fifties, we live in post disruptive investigative journalism times.

[@boyindress9592]

@@tachobrenner that’s what they want you to think so that you see them as a source but in reality very little has changed.

[@boyindress9592]

@@tachobrenner just think about how many of these companies are still around today, do you think they all changed they’re ways.

[@vallisdaemonumofficial]

Pre-internet trolling was a whole different ballgame

[@un0RRS]

Reminds me of the time that David Bowie trolled the entire art community by inventing a painter named Nat Tate and getting a bunch of pretentious art people to claim to know him.

[@apurvaisnotcool]

Bowie was fucking awesome

[@theeclectic2919]

Hunter Biden is also a fake artist. But I think there's a lot of money laundering that goes with it.

[@callumbreton8930]

​@@apurvaisnotcool He was even going to be the villain in Bladerunner 2048

[@maren8597]

Where did you hear about this? I want to know more

[@dislikereporter2271]

Close, Bowie was a participant in the hoax but didn’t start it

[@joebykaeby]

I would absolutely love it if a week from now Austin came out and said “oh yeah that whole story about the fake book, I made that up.”

[@SenshiSunPower]

I, Libertine has been a known story for a while, so I don't think he'd be the one making it up. It's sat comfortably beside "Take Me Off Your Email List" and "Atlanta Nights" as a literary hoax.

[@tatehildyard5332]

Honestly, a scam like this would be very hard to pull off nowadays because of the internet and how quickly information can be reported and how well documented that information is. A person would just plug the name into google and either be able to spot the pattern themselves or someone else in the chain either slips or figures it out first.

[@nate_d376]

@@tatehildyard5332 I wouldn't be so sure....just look at the crap that lands on TV and cable news and the internet, that seems to stick around in spite of contradictory evidence. Lol.

[@BewareTheLilyOfTheValley]

@@nate_d376 There are a lot of people who prefer the mantra "I reject your reality and substitute it with my own." 🙄

[@heyitsevan758]

@@tatehildyard5332 I think it is easier than ever to pull this off. People and companies are so obsessed with the idea about being “first” to publish something that speed comes before accuracy. Sure, it may get exposed quicker than it would in the 50s, but so many people would have moved on by then that the misinformation would live on.

[@BlueGuy98]

The funny thing is, Jean Shepherd went on to write an actual book called “In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash”. This book became the basis for A Christmas Story, which Shepherd also narrated

[@fearofowl5973]

I thought he sounded familiar and was sure he was the narrator in that

[@teenygozer]

He wrote several books including The Ferrari in the Bedroom and Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories, but In God We Trust is his best! When I was in the 6th grade I begged my mom to take me to one of his bookstore appearances. He read stories and talked off the cuff, it was amazing. I was a huge fan of his radio talk show on WOR in NYC.

[@PJSproductions97]

...I'm not sure I should believe you

[@oliverbrownlow5615]

During my childhood and teen years, my grandparents lived in a house that was across the street from the boyhood home of Jean Shepherd in Hammond, Indiana. I currently live in another house on the same street, and at times I can see it from my front porch. Each year during the Christmas season, a lamp shaped like a woman's leg appears in the window.

[@caatcher]

In God We Trust is a compilation of short stories Shep wrote, many for Playboy. Shep did a wraparound and some interstitial material.

[@andno7850]

I did that in college. The assignment was to select a short story and then analyze it using what the professor had taught us in the last 6 months. I decided to write my own short story under a fake name and analyze it... I got a 10 out of 10.

[@rustyslug2943]

analyze isn't spelt like that. Don't know how you dodged the squiggly red line.

[@HenryLouis21]

Nice. Did you ever publish that short story? If not, you should because I am interested in what you wrote.

[@rob31hockey]

@@rustyslug2943 as well as incorrect use of "wrote."

[@aidanm5849]

@@rustyslug2943 analyse is not spelled like that either.

[@BananaWasTaken]

@@aidanm5849 quote from a 5 second google search (so lots of research /s) ‘Users of British English prefer analyse, while American English users have standardized around analyze’

[@pryankster69]

A friend of mine, and her best friend started a trend in high school. They clipped the "bread tags" to their ears like earrings. When asked why? they said "all of the people at are doing it, it's cool". By the end of the week, all of the people at her high school AND rival high school were clipping bread tags to their ears

[@pappy374]

That story is the best thing since sliced bread.

[@aliceramdom.s]

bread tags are not a thing in the uk I guess

[@beetooex]

@@aliceramdom.s I see them sometimes on the crap mass produced sliced bread. It closes the bag as an alternative to that little tab of sticky tape.

[@bernardkung7306]

@@pappy374 Who knows? It might even be true.

[@smolbirb4]

Sure that happened then everyone clapped right?

[@AshtonRob]

Havent watched the video, think it's a rousing swashbuckler and a must-watch. 0/10

[@maestrofeli4259]

-Old shire Places

[@DojoCatMaster]

Very clever :)

[@kristofladanyi3671]

cringe

[@-Teague-]

@Elaine Greenwood excuse me

[@liketrainslol420funni]

But you did watch the video

[@rbrooks2007]

In the U.K. we had a book come into existence all due to a British Telecom TV advert where the storyline is of an old man who kept going into bookshops asking for 'Fly Fishing by J.R. Hartley' and told that they didn't have it. The daughter hands him a telephone directory so he phones around and finally one bookstore says they have a copy. When he asks if they could reserve it for him they ask him his name "My name? J. R. Hartley" he replies. The book now exists in real life.

[@PaytonSwan]

If someone told me there was a bestselling author named Frederick R. Ewing, I would not only believe them, but would convince myself I've heard of him before.

[@RiddSann]

Most likely, and so would I, just think of how many movies or artists you've said you've heard of before but never actually seen or heard and how many could have been legitimately fake without you knowing.

[@mcfixer9503]

the thing is i swear ive heard of a name similar to ewing - from some book similar to alice in wonderland or smth - but im probably just thinking of euler and euclid

[@jjhartchess]

Tbf there was a famous Oxford philosopher called Alfred Ewing, so your mind might be thinking of that

[@pumpyronaldrump_4417]

@@jjhartchess or what if you are lying too 😐

[@pumpyronaldrump_4417]

@@jjhartchess ok looked it up he was a physicist

[@Albeit_Jordan]

I vividly recall a moment in the second grade wherein two other kids in my class were sharing a good laugh over a new Adam Sandler movie they had both happened to watch the night before and, feeling left out, I chimed in by sharing a favorite scene of mine, only it was one I was making up entirely off the top of my head because I hadn't seen the movie myself... the two kids went completely silent for about three seconds until one of them excitedly exclaimed 'yeah that part was hilarious!'

[@MissPopuri]

That generally happened to me because I didn’t have access to cable tv like most kids in my school. You don’t want to feel like an outsider because your parents are poor and too stupid to afford good tv reception 😂

[@russ254]

they were being nice to you

[@ELTABULLO]

​@@russ254 you cold for that

[@bob8776]

I used to do the same thing when I was a kid because we didn’t have money to see movies in the theater but didn’t want to feel left out

[@pagamenews]

I was thinking about this the other day... I'd be talking to a friend in Jr High and noticed some other kids listening. I'd talk about how my family "sent the servants home early". Or, about how I had "the chauffeur drive me to our mountain villa".

[@benturner853]

“The Bestselling Novel That Fooled The World”, by Austin McConnell? Yes, that’s a superb video, really tickled my intellectual fancy. Now now, when will this Mr. McConnell get his recognition?

[@LawrenceLS]

top comment material right here

[@maestrofeli4259]

senator ben sir respectfully, what is wrong with you, sir?

[@georgethejedi]

good luck with the election!

[@koboarchives969]

@@maestrofeli4259 bro he just fucking around, because this is interesting but youtube thinks this is a pile of fucking shit. and will continuously promote it less until he satisfys the system. He should make something that gives him a fuck ton of views. like another conspiracy vid, youtube liked them.

[@maestrofeli4259]

@@koboarchives969 why are you telling me this

[@gwest3644]

If you recognize Shepherd’s voice, he actually narrated “A Christmas Story” and he even wrote the novel it’s based on.

[@XanderPGK]

Oh shit, really? That's neat.

[@motioninmind6015]

The movie takes elements from a lot of his works, including his radio show. It's a kind of mishmash of the whacky Jean Shepherd universe

[@DillonVibbart]

"If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you're misinformed... One of the effects of too much information is the need to be first, not to be true" - Denzel Washington

[@seldomstudios6351]

Tell that to today’s internet world

[@kurtwagner350]

I’m pretty sure that’s on the code of arms at the New York Times headquarters

[@nate_d376]

Smart guy that Denzel, if he actually said it. I have to be skeptical about everything now that I've watched this video!

[@mcfixer9503]

wow, denzel washington said that? i can't believe george washinton said that!! i mean really, i was unaware king george IV was so smart! i really should read more about king henry IV

[@nate_d376]

@@mcfixer9503 lmao...

[@Knights_Oath]

It reminds me of a project I did for my Sociology class in college. I went around gathering signatures from students to end women's suffrage. I got over 100 people to sign it before I stopped. Only 2 asked for more details. And only 3 people actually knew what suffrage actually was. The best part was there was a girl in my class who signed it. She gave me the dirtiest looks for the rest of the year after that.

[@EnderGradRPC]

LOL

[@tompatterson1548]

Probably thought it meant suffering.

[@AManOnline.]

"We do a little trolling" -Gene Shepard, 1956

[@subsnovideoschallenge-kb7st]

He does a minuscule bit of tomfoolery

[@danielawesome36]

We do a quite considerable amount of mental trickery and mockery of those who are unfortunate enough to fall victim to our clever little traps of social teasing.

[@GiftSparks]

It was spelled “Jean Shepherd.”

[@WantSomeWhiskey818]

In college I had to write an essay about how wild west movies romanticize the real wild west. I didnt watch a single movie, only read reviews and synopses, wrote it in like two and a half hours the day it was due and I got a 95% with the notes "Very informative!"

[@erraticonteuse]

I love that Theodore "90% of everything is crap" Sturgeon had a little part to play in this farce. It's the cherry on top of the whole story.

[@nooneinparticular3370]

In creating the fake story or by falling for it?

[@arfansthename]

@@nooneinparticular3370 Creating the story. He wrote the real book.

[@nooneinparticular3370]

@@arfansthename Nice!

[@jrdougan]

That was the part that made me go from chuckling to full on laughter.

[@SorendeSelbyBowen]

That line that people quote (it's actually "crud", not "crap") is slightly misunderstood. Sturgeon was an excellent writer; particularly he was a great stylist. The quoted line was in a conversation when he was defending science fiction. The person who was attacking SF finally said (paraphrasing), "Okay, maybe you're right, some science fiction might be okay. But ninety percent of this science fiction is crud." And Sturgeon replied, "Ninety percent of =everything= is crud."

[@leonardofernandez6488]

When I'm talking about a book and I get the impression that the other person is just pretending to have read it, I make up a ludicrous ending to find out whether the other person has read it or not. I only got caught once.

[@youtubeuniversity3638]

What if they claim to only be part way through it?

[@DavidBrown-xn2pg]

This is so wholesome, creating such a frenzy and then using the proceeds for charity.

[@laurena9563]

I was going to say; the more I listened all I could think was this guy is the literal definition of a "good egg."

[@irgendwer3610]

chaotic good people be like

[@OtakuNoShitpost]

I should hope it was a charity for the illiterate

[@KanjoosLahookvinhaakvinhookvin]

I believe the charity was The Human Fund. An estimable institution but not surprising for Mr. Shepherd. I hear he even got Vandelay Industries to match him. God charity is so wholesome.

[@perihelionstudios7563]

Goncharov (1973) is Tumblr’s “I, Libertine” and I love it.

[@Elemtree]

I was half expecting this to be another story to promote a book of his but I’d still end up buying it.

[@PwnZombie]

Congrats, you've unintentionally promoted his book.

[@MikeCrocker]

Tiber wasn't kidding, how do you get so many top comments?

[@geoffreyexcellent4199]

Really surprised the video doesn’t mention that Jean Shepherd wrote “In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash” which ultimately became the basis for A Christmas Story. He even narrated and had a cameo in the film!

[@RangerErnsy]

You know, I really had the thought that his voice sounded familiar and I couldn't place it. Thanks!

[@sdfeinstein]

He wrote that book 11 years later.

[@caatcher]

Shep's cameo is at the department store. He's the guy who says "Hey, kid!" and tells Ralphie to go to the end of that very long line to see Santa. BTW the lady with Shep was Shep's actual wife. She predeceased him, and Shep once said he'd watch the movie on TV every year so he could see her and raise a glass to her.

[@aaronharris1092]

I would have absolutely lost my shit if at the end of the video Austin went, "you know what the craziest part of this whole story is? None of it ever happened, I made it up"

[@blartversenwaldiii]

I was terrified he was about to pull the rug out from under me, because the story was so good I needed it to be true

[@safe-keeper1042]

I had to do a Google search, myself. Would've made for such a great ending.

[@mercster]

I would absolutely love it if people just simply looked up the story instead of pretending to know some guy "Austin" and that's the only thing you got out of this video. You dope.

[@alastorlapid2365]

Makes me think of Randy feltface. 'The Bookshelf'

[@bellhop_phantom]

That'd be so disappointing, though. Like the "it was all a dream" ending at the end of a video game

[@MatthewCobalt]

This situation definitely had the three primary part of trolls. The observers (those who wish to see the mess unfold), the passive participants (those who poke a bit to see how far it will go),and the role-players (who go full troll and basically impersonate a non-existant author or scam journalists with false books).

[@thanatoast]

I remember our teacher telling us about this book, though i think she must've been mistaken about some things because according to her: The book WAS real, but it hadn’t been published yet. Either way, it's a really good example that maybe so called experts can also lie to make themselves seem more educated.

[@patrickreilly478]

I mean, it WAS eventually published, so she wasn't entirely wrong.

[@thanatoast]

@@patrickreilly478 Well, the way that she said it was more like, it was a publicity stunt to sell the book before it came out for real.

[@iivin4233]

@@thanatoast Interesting that your teacher almost had the right interpretation.

[@envycollar]

"History repeats itself, again and again." - Martin Scorsese, director of Goncharov

[@flat-seventh]

Big fan of Goncharov, one of Scorsese’s finest works

[@AS-nk3mh]

Such an amazing movie, Goncharov.

[@WitchOfGreed]

Robert DeNiro's most underrated but best role

[@tammybixby6410]

Finally! Someone's talking about Goncharov. I thought it was Joe Pesci was really great in it

[@SpiffoGaming]

I totally forgot about this classic real movie

[@8illy]

guys i just read this new book called i libertine, its phenominal

[@mashucha]

i hate I libertine, i had to do an english paper on it

[@oraclerpg163]

It's not as good as the author's earlier work. However, his deconstruction of early mercantile capitalism truly challenges the prevailing hegemony of our times.

[@nightshadetq2453]

i heard they're making a movie adaptation

[@Ayesha-sg9qv]

Personally, I think that the book wasn't too great, it had lots of plot holes

[@kevind843]

I read it in 1956 in NYC. It was quite unbelievable a story!

[@Robin0928]

This is 100% how I feel about half of the popular Netflix Shows where I hear how amazing they are and I feel like I've never heard of it before

[@ELTABULLO]

Specially when Netflix "organically" pretends they have a scary movie that is in fact so scary most people never finish it

[@rakaipikatan8922]

This is the best me and the boys stories I've ever seen

[@taitano12]

My grandfather told me about this. He was an actual Professor (Marine Navigation, Telecommunication, and World Naval History) and a huge bookworm. He overheard my grandma and a friend talking about it. He'd never heard of the book, but found the name sounded familiar, so he went to the library, they didn't have it and said that they'd gotten several requests, but couldn't find it in the distribution catalogs - which are the same for book stores. They concluded that the book didn't exist and, being on a first name basis, they shared a laugh over coffee at the articles and lists that discussed it. They even laughed at some of his coworkers who were talking about it as though they had read it. Apparently the English Literature Professor he worked with, who was not fooled, thought it was made up by a student who was making it up to give a book review using critiquing lessons she'd been teaching, and gave the student high marks despite knowing it didn't exist. When the whole thing was exposed after the following quarter, the EL Prof. straight up passed the student for that quarter, but knocked their points for the current quarter in half because that quarter was focused on research and verification of sources. He told me this story to remind me not to believe everything I read.

[@hansolobutimdead]

I don't believe a word of this

[@hansolobutimdead]

@@taitano12 Dude... It was a joke. The moral of the story was to not believe everything you read. And I didn't believe what you wrote. Wtf

[@taitano12]

@@hansolobutimdead Sorry. It was a long, exhausting day and I was half asleep. My apologies.

[@hansolobutimdead]

@@taitano12 well don't take it out on me, I'm just a random guy on the internet

[@meowertwelve]

Even with the internet, this could still work today. People believe anything, with or without proof.

[@ROBYNMARKOW]

Going by all the Maga-ists in this country , v. true..🙄

[@isaacholzwarth]

@@ROBYNMARKOW this comment is ironic to me.

[@ROBYNMARKOW]

@@isaacholzwarth Imo, it's not just ironic, it's scary...

[@nonameless2]

Yeah, just bc we have better technology & tools for spreading information doesn't mean we're any better at using them

[@GummyDinosaursify]

I'm having flashbacks to that facebook post that went around a few years back that said you could charge your phone by microwaving it.

[@limetwistanimations8628]

It's just... Perfect. Totally, completely perfect.

[@writershard5065]

A little too perfect. What if some of this was also fake? D:

[@eduardorickrot4763]

Something similar happened to me, of course in a much smaller scale. When I was in the first month of my first actual job, as a lab technician at a pharmaceutical company, one colleague tried something like this to see what I would say. He was explaining part a of a methodology to me and said something like "and so the the solute simply goes from one of the liquid phase to the other, according to Hudson's Law". And I was like, hmm, ok. He looked at me and said, "What, you know Hudson's Law, right?", and I told him no. He started saying what a tragedy that so fresh out of school I had already forgotten such an elementary principle, how those new technicians seem to be getting worse and I just said I did not remember and said I would look it up then and he started laughing "Oh, glad you didn't fall for it. Sounds like it could be real though, doesn't it?".

[@kimberlyterasaki4843]

Broke: Orson Welles' "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast is a lesson in mass hysteria. Woke: "I, Libertine" is a lesson that everyone is just trying to fit in and "fake-it-till-you-make-it" is how the world works until it doesn't.

[@Seth9809]

As far as I know, no one freaked out over the radio broadcast.

[@kimberlyterasaki4843]

@@Seth9809 That... that's the joke. I don't know how much more obvious I could have made it that that was the joke.

[@mcfixer9503]

@@Seth9809 over the WotW broadcast? many people did, as they tuned in late and thought there was a legitimate martian invasion

[@ToomanyFrancis]

@@mcfixer9503 That belief is a result of the exact type of thing this whole I, Libertine hoax was mocking. Newspapers exaggerated the extent of the hysteria immensely. The War of the Worlds broadcast was performed at the same time as a far more popular radio broadcast, very few people even tuned in to listen to War of the Worlds. The broadcast did mislead a significant amount of it's listeners for a short period, but there were intermittent reminders that the broadcast was a work of fiction. The "mass hysteria" that was reported was entirely misinformation. A very tiny percentage of listeners actually panicked. Not many people listened to War of the Worlds live, most that did realized fairly quickly that it was a performance. It is true that police were called shortly after the broadcast started, and the station was in a bit of a frenzy, but there was no mass hysteria on a national scale.

[@lazymansload520]

@@Seth9809there were some who freaked out, but they assumed it meant the Germans were invading, not the martians.

[@powellmountainmike8853]

I knew about I Libertine. I was a big Shep fan. As a kid I listened to his radio broadcast every weeknight, and to the Saturday night shows from the Limelight Club in Greenwich Village when he did those. I also read all his books. He was a brilliant writer of humorous short stories, compilations of the stories he told on the radio each night. He also wrote several screen plays which were made into movies. The most famous of these is A Christmas Story, about the kid with the Red Rider BB gun. That movie is a compilation of stories he had told over the years on his radio show. He also had a TV show on PBS called Jean Shepherd's America. He was probably the greatest humorist of his age, not comedian, HUMORIST, in the tradition of Samuel Clemens. We have not seen his like nor equal since.

[@kinrateia]

How old are you? :0

[@powellmountainmike8853]

@@kinrateia 70, I was born in the waning days of the Truman administration.

[@brianbitner]

Jean Shepherd was just taking out his lingering frustration from how difficult it was for him to get that Red Ryder gun as a kid.

[@phildicks4721]

Lol😁

[@MissBeeBonnet]

“I, Libertine” walked so “Goncharov” could run

[@catntmeows]

I never imagined old radio to be THIS interesting 😂

[@catntmeows]

@David Nash be- because 😭 Leave me alone David Nash

[@KinVao]

Wonder if there were other old radio shenanigans. Also, I love your username.

[@catntmeows]

@@Stevie-J Forgive me if I've offended you somehow. I never 'Expected' it to be this funny means I have never found any other source to get these information easily before. It directly means that I am too uninformed about past. Also I'm Indian and have never left my country ever. All the information I get are sourced from internet. I'll try to explore and learn more ❤️

[@worldcomicsreview354]

Radio at it's height probably had bigger cultural penetration than any other medium has before or since. You didn't just have it at home, you had it in the car and at work! Couldn't do that with TV and certainly not with the internet (though some people do try to surf and drive)

[@matthewstrakna1537]

When people think of pranks, usually they envision teenagers making prank calls, throwing toilet paper on someone's house, or dressing up in scary costumes to terrify children on Halloween. But those pranks are shallow, hollow, and have no point other than to amuse the prankster. The I, Libertine prank, however, was for a purpose: to expose supposedly knowledgable critics and experts as frauds, to pull back the curtain and reveal the literary wizards of oz as the fraud they were. And it WORKED. Beautifully.

[@MissPopuri]

The con artists who would make petty crimes like tp on a roof or graffiti on walls is small timers compared to the real Merlins of deviancy.

[@captaingymshorts]

Guess I'll be (one of) the first to point this out here: Jean Shepherd is also the inspiration of AND narrator of A Christmas Story

[@briggy4359]

You own a doghouse.

[@cashwarior]

Oh that's super cool actually :o

[@geoffreyexcellent4199]

@@briggy4359 he MUST be a professor of logic at the university of science

[@EricHeidenAuthor]

I thought the name and voice sounded familiar. Now I know why.

[@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721]

Fun fact: A Christmas Story never actually existed. Everyone just started saying it's a movie but it's not real.

[@justinlipkin]

Absolutely amazing video! So well produced, not clickbait, crisp and clear. Great bits of humour and informative fact giving along with great pacing and narrative. Austin, you've been doing some great stuff for a long time, but looking at this video and thinking back a few years ago I would say that you have somehow improved. Didn't think that was even possible but here we are. Thank you

[@austinmcconnell]

Thanks, man. This comment made my day.

[@heatherthedutch-american1481]

I love this! I was literally laughing out loud. The times haven't changed there goes the king with no clothes.

[@HowToCookThat]

This was great Austin :)

[@DinoRicky]

Omg your a fan and has way more subs and your a cooking channel on a fact channel?!?! Your cool

[@lamarhenderson8058]

"Nobody cares about a movie until it gets an Oscar nod." Especially when the Oscars are Emmies.

[@markm8188]

It was a double-troll.

[@jstarstudios7110]

I am so glad we've been Goncharov ing for so much of history

[@stillbuyvhs]

Heard of this before, on Wikipedia, but it's a great story, & hearing the actual radio broadcasts is cool. Unless you made those up for the video? I don't want to fall into the same trap as the folks who said they read "I, Libertine." I like to give folks the benefit of the doubt tho; perhaps some were simply mistaken? Perhaps they mixed up the plot, title, & author's name with another work?

[@doubtful_seer]

Yeah, I can think of a book or two that could definitely get confused with a book with that title.

[@simcity4111]

(It’s the real radio, if you look up on KZbin you can se bigger parts of the program)

[@patrickreilly478]

I'm willing to believe that, at the least, The Village Voice was likely a reviewer/journalist having some fun getting in on the fake trend knowingly.

[@safe-keeper1042]

The Mandela effect is a real phenomenon, so yes, I can definitely see that happening with some people.

[@CHloE748]

No, they were just full of BS

[@barnabascee1889]

Three thoughts: 1. This is a common phenomenon now. It's not always about books. I see it all the time when people discuss technology they don't understand. 2. It all reminds me of the premise of the movie "F for Fake" which literally seems to teach the lesson that everybody is faking it all the time and that the only way to be taken seriously in any field is to (internally) come to terms with that fact and own it. 3. I knew a college kid who turned in a Bach 2 part invention for a music counterpoint class that he only transcribed into another key and then called it his own. The teacher commenting that he was improving and gave him a B+.

[@orangemoustash]

I'll be honest about halfway through I needed to google to find other sources to see if this was true or some high-level meta joke just like I, Libertine. It seems to either be real or very, very, thorough and an incredibly long con.

[@safe-keeper1042]

That was my first thought, too. Would've been an ingenious critical thinking exercise.

[@teenygozer]

I've been a fan since I was a kid in the early 70s and I own a copy that I bought on eBay many years ago. I used to listen to his nightly radio show and went to see him talk at a bookstore when he was debuting In God We Trust. In retrospect, I was a very weird girl!

[@Engineer_Who]

Does Shepard's voice sound familiar to you? You probably know him best as the narrator of _A Christmas Story!_ He also wrote the book the movie is based on, and he cameos as the man who tells Ralphie to go to the back of the line to see Santa.

[@luckykennedy7364]

I can’t wait till you cover the Beatles being Klaatu myth from the mid to late 70s…it’s pretty funny

[@smurfyx]

My dad is still convinced it was a Beatles record.

[@marcorinothezeroth3795]

@@smurfyx I talked to the former Klaatu members Dee Long and Terry Draper about it, they confirmed it wasn't them. But, you can tell your dad that Dee Long actually worked together with George Martin and used equipment similar to the one of the Beatles after Klaatu disbanded. Dee actually met and talked to Paul McCartney after Paul learned about the Klaatu rumor.

[@luckykennedy7364]

@@marcorinothezeroth3795 The bandit some really good shit though… their second album is a goddamn classic and I swear it should be played on the radio now it deserves that status

[@marcorinothezeroth3795]

@@luckykennedy7364 I agree. Hope is one of the best albums ever. And I actually played some of their songs on radio. As a matter of fact, the first thing I have ever done for radio was a feature where I talked about the Klaatu myth.

[@hasanalharaz7454]

@@luckykennedy7364 being on the radio isnt really a high honor these days lol

[@kennyhogg5820]

I found out some best sellers and classics are just a product of commercializing them. You get the right people to promote your book and it rises to the top. Some of them just started out as dime store paperbacks, and now are taught in classes, while other just as good novels fade into history.

[@jooghoo3983]

It's crazy how you could've easily gotten away with this stuff when internet wasn't around.

[@aidengray3998]

You can still do it.

[@jooghoo3983]

​@@aidengray3998 True, but definitely not as easily.

[@powderslinger5968]

@@jooghoo3983 Much easier now.

[@onbearfeet]

I rewatch this video every so often, and I have just been siezed by a burning desire to see a video by you on either Naked Came the Stranger or Atlanta Nights. Or both. They're both glorious literary hoaxes, and they tie together well enough to make a single video.

[@skrrskrr]

Stories like these are why I'm here. I would probably never have heard of this, and I almost find that tragic. This is such a fantastic story that I feel deserves so much more attention. Cheers.

[@princegoatcheese9379]

"Nobody cares about a movie until it gets an Oscar nod". So true, I remember the debacle over Parasyte winning against Joker, it was funny seeing a bunch of people lose their minds over something so small. I'm also glad a foreign film got the recognition it deserved.

[@columbus8myhw]

Parasite (the South Korean movie), not Parasyte (the Japanese comic and animated TV series), surely? (For what it's worth, Parasite was very good in my opinion. I haven't seen Joker.)

[@princegoatcheese9379]

@@columbus8myhw Yes, it's the Korean film not the anime/manga. Spelling mistake on my part.

[@shoopoop21]

@@princegoatcheese9379 not everybody likes movies that encourage class warfare, but the geriatrics at the oscars sure do. Don't kid yourself, if the message of that movie had been different, you wouldn't have given a shit, and neither would the oscars, because they are by definition this sort of list maker.

[@reddytoplay9188]

While it is small having an award especially the Oscars is kinda like getting the recognition it deserves. Even though the reality is that the Oscars is just bad now but an Oscars awards dying reputation is still strong enough to make people see it as "important". Joker is a film brought societal problems that scared companies to the point that they wanted it to fail. Compare that to parasite(which from what I heard is a great film) which is just another class warfare which has been done to death but except parasite does it right making it on a whole other level than trash dramas(my country Philippines has had so many class warfare dramas). Although it was obvious Joker was never going to be picked.

[@ohauss]

@@shoopoop21 Because Joker wasn't about "class warfare", huh?

[@slappy8941]

This reminds me of a story I read about a con artist, I believe it was in the late 19th or early 20th century, who paid a bunch of people to spread the buzz about a fictional man who owned a fictional company that was really doing great things and returning great profits for investors, and then one day he showed up in town and began to casually go about his business of staying in the best hotel and eating at the finest restaurants and just doing all the things that successful people would normally do, and introducing himself as one normally would, and as it turned out, he was already known in town and there was much buzz about his business. Many people had heard so much about him and his wild success that they wanted to know him and get in on his various endeavors, so it was not difficult to start fleecing them immediately. A big part of his trick was that he didn't want to talk about business, and people would have to press him to divulge his affairs, and then they would virtually beg to be allowed to invest with him. He was always hesitant to take their money, and of course this only gave him more credibility in their eyes. he made no promises, and actually warned people that investments could be risky, to which they would reply that there is no reward without risk, and so they would walk right into his trap with their eyes wide open along with their checkbook. Of course the more cryptic he was about his investments, the more sure people were that they were in on a good thing, and so very few people would follow up with him to seek further information, but simply trust that this mysterious stranger was going to make them filthy rich. Being so cryptic, it was hardly a surprise to anyone when he disappeared. They rationalized that a man of such subtle sensibilities would naturally keep his affairs rather secret, in order to avoid competitors finding out too much about him. So he was long gone by the time anyone began to suspect that they had been conned, but most people who had given him their money didn't want to make it publicly known that they had fallen for his scam, so the whole thing was kept fairly quiet out of fear of embarrassment to the investors. It was only a few people at first who began to ask questions, but eventually the story was picked up by a newspaper reporter, who speculated that the man had run off to Australia or some such place, never to be seen again. To the best of my memory, that was the case, and the best information anyone could give about him was the name that he went by and his general description, but other than that nothing was known.

[@lordofthemound3890]

Was his name Donald Trump?

[@ScottyDunn]

It's a pleasure to hear about Jean Shepherd. I only knew of him from A Christmas Story and A Summer Story before this.

[@bernardkung7306]

Just over a dozen years later, (ie. in 1969) two dozen writers got together to write a deliberately and assiduously worthless book ("a sexually explicit novel with no literary or social value whatsoever"), and get it published, to see if they could get it promoted as great modern literature, to demonstrate the superficiality of the literary scene. This book, _Naked Came The Stranger_ , supposedly by one Penelope Ashe, quickly became a _bona fide_ Best Seller on the lists. Finally, the authors revealed it was a deliberate hoax -- at which point sales actually increased.

[@pedrocarvalhodarocha6947]

I would have probably heard someone talk about the book, tell them I hadn’t read it, but now that it’s been recommended I’ll look in to it. Then proceeded to ignore and forget about it.

[@charlotteroberts]

This is definitely one of my favourite styles of your videos: tell us about something we didn't know. It's wonderful! Thanks for sharing.

[@wiesejay]

“I had woven a tapestry of obscenity that as far as I know is still hanging in space over Lake Michigan. ”

[@1.4142]

Plot twist: None of this happened and Austin is just testing if any of us do research to double check.

[@oisinmckenna1054]

The winds of winter is a fantastic book, 10/10 the part where Jon grew dragon wings was superb.

[@chibiktsn3]

This reminds me of all the phonies who act like they've seen my favorite movie, Goncharov, by the great Martin Scorsese.

[@LezbeOswald]

i wanna give slight defense to a couple groups of people mentioned in the hoax: professors grading papers about the book-believe it or not, professors don't have time to fact check every single source you cite in your literary analysis, and most of the time, they're just looking to make sure your analysis makes sense and that you've provided good defenses for it. it's not about making sure you actually read a book or not (some of the time, obviously others will make you analyze a specific book) it's about making sure students actually demonstrate that they can think critically and draw their own conclusions. in grad school i wrote a paper about a reality show and one about an anime and i know my professor didn't watch either of them, he just focused on whether or not i understood the concepts we studied in class and could apply them to a piece of media of my choosing. librarians who created cards for the book/author: if you're getting lots of requests from the book, even if you can't track it down, you might make at the very least a temporary card so it's on record, especially if you did contact the publisher or a bookseller and they lied and told you they ordered it. and double especially in the 1950s when you coudn't fact check the book's existence easily.

[@RTDelete]

Stuff like this is so cool, exposing frauds live will always be awesome

[@SuperFredAZ]

I was 13 in 1956, but I heard about this from my brother who was a "listener". I became a "listener" (follower of Jean Shepherd) a few years later, He then became quite popular with short stories in Playboy and the movie " A Christmas Story"

[@AwSamWeston]

Okay, this story DESERVES to be a movie. There's so much you could apply to our modern-day discourse!

[@thelastdictator482]

There was a period in my late teens/early twenties when people were discovering the movie version of 'Naked Lunch' (by then about 10 years old). I don't know if it had a DVD release or what, but it seemed everyone was suddenly aware of Naked Lunch, but claiming that they had read it instead of watched the film interpretation. A friend and I had somehow managed to drag ourselves through the book, and liked to ask these people what their favorite part was. We didn't usually call them out directly, so much as respond that our favorite parts were the most graphic and disgusting moments of the book. If you aren't aware, the movie is more of a meta take on the writing of the novel than any direct relation to the book and as such is more a heavy PG13 compared to the novel's

[@stephenolan5539]

Is it possible to read the entire book without being a heroin addict. I think I only got about halfway through.

[@thelastdictator482]

@@stephenolan5539 It helped that I was a f'ed up teen with an even more f'ed up friend to goad each other along. There are bits in the book that managed to pierce even the idiotacy of teen boyhood though

[@MissPopuri]

I’ve only heard about Naked Lunch from Perks of being a Wallflower. That is truly funny if the premise of the movie is a meta on the books.

[@Fragolux]

I sort of did this in high school psychology. Part of my finals was to write an essay, so on the spot I threw together a bunch of gobbledygook packed with buzzwords and vague references to Buddhism and the Bhagavad Gita and hoped for the best. My teacher gave my an A and wrote that I was "well thought."

[@ashleyhathaway8548]

I hoped you thanked your bodhisattva.

[@matthewstrakna1537]

I did something similar for a Biology paper. I was doing an experiment involving birds reacting to stimuli, and I realized that I couldn't get the data that I needed to with my chosen method, so I did the experiment in a completely different way that still produced the needed data points. I got an A

[@MissPopuri]

I got a full ride scholarship to college from an essay contest using that approach. 😂

[@PogieJoe]

Damn this gentleman called out how we interreact with the overstimulation of media made in the present seventy years ago!

[@lonelysheepling]

When the Goncharov thing was going around I remembered this video and wrote a media analysis paper for my comm class on Goncharov and Katya. I got an A and I’m very glad to have contributed to the modern successor to I, Libertine

[@mxstrikk]

Welp, I know what I'm doing my next informative presentation on...

[@Paul_Wetor]

The weird part is that the prank was set up *on the radio* - it's not like it was just word of mouth. Granted it was nighttime radio, but still.

[@efjayadi]

"President is gonna mention that he loves this book" The President : fyuh~

[@Nesto_]

Haiya

[@alikirb]

what

[@JaysonT1]

@@alikirb What what

[@alikirb]

@@JaysonT1 what what what

[@staceixan]

@@alikirb what what what what

[@CSLucasEpic]

Okay, now why do people keep talking about the 1938 panic over the broadcast of War of the World, but nobody talks about this? This is brilliant!

[@MrTDWfan]

Plot twist: this never happened, and Austin made up a story about someone making up a story to see how many people would be fooled by a up front admission of forgery. For real though, great video

[@jacobhargiss3839]

I hate how this could so easily be possible.

[@smbcollector]

Dang, someone already thought of this comment idea! You beat me to it, haha

[@SamnissArandeen]

That's why my first thing after the video was to immediately Google it, and get two separate sources verifying the story's veracity.

[@mercster]

I would absolutely love it if people just simply looked up the story instead of pretending to know some guy "Austin" and that's the only thing you got out of this video. You dope.

[@TJ-bu9zk]

When people say "thats just a conspiracy theory! Do you how many people need to be in on it for it to be true?" Only a very small number... the rest just need to be complicit in perpetuating it.

[@fossposs6408]

this kinda sounds like a larger scale version of "no soap radio" lmao

[@zyaicob]

+

[@NoNameAtAll2]

what soap radio?

[@ZyxthePest]

"AND WHAT DO YOU WANT FOR CHRISTMAS, LITTLE BOY?!" "I WANT NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER AND CRITICAL SMASH I, LIBERTINE BY FREDERICK R. EWING" "...you'll ruin your reputation kid...HO HO HO!!!!!!!!"

[@delusionnnnn]

"Pilgrim's Progress" had an incredible amount of sales for a book which was, at the time, considered pretty ponderous and by today's standards, is dreadfully unreadable to most people. In the 17th and 18th century, it was more important to own a copy than to have read it. Even the faithful would have problems with narratives about characters who are literally named after their attributes.

[@Seth9809]

Why was it important to read it.

[@delusionnnnn]

@@Seth9809 It wasn't. It was important to have it in one's home as a display of Puritan piety. These days, it's kind of like having a Bible in the house, since nobody reads that, but on the mantle, where everyone knows you have it.

[@delusionnnnn]

@@qemdrive I have a lot and read, but I can feel my attention span slipping. I think we just need to print out our forums and print out empty boxes of the audiobooks we listen to so we don't have that nagging voice.

[@sharpduds]

@@Seth9809 I actually read and analyzed it in middle school(?), and it's basically a fable, a fictionalization of Protastant theology of that time, kind of like Kierkegaard's parable of the writing desk from Either/Or. It's not that bad, pretty good if you read it as a hyper-stylized hero's journey fantasy novel

[@ostrich67]

@@sharpduds Bullshit! 😆

[@Voodoomaria]

I occasionally do this ting for fun, where I spin someone a completely ludicrous story, with such a casual straight face that they believe every word. I was on the front desk of an office tower, and a gentleman asked to use the washroom. I explained the building [a thirty story office tower] didn't in fact have ANY washrooms at all. He was skeptical at first before i reminded him the building was built in the 70's and there was this architectural firm that designed a number of buildings, but neglected to include washrooms, that there were several that were built around downtown, and nobody noticed or commented on the oversight until the buildings were complete. I went on to explain how all the staff in the building had to use the washrooms in the mall across the street... Coffee breaks were a nightmare... He was completely buying it , was actually remembering "Reading about that somewhere" Until I laughed, then directed him to the corridor 20 feet to my right with the washroom sign over it. People don't THINK for themselves. They don't read, they don't observe, they just listen, and react to the FIRST thing they hear no matter how factually inaccurate. They hear about something, then without research adopt the FIRST opinion they hear on the subject, then defend it vigorously without actually KNOWING anything about it. When somebody says "You have to have an opinion, EVERYBODY has an opinion", I cringe. People, contrary to popular [and in fact their own] beliefs do NOT have opinions. They have impressions. An opinion is a point of view developed after hearing and thoroughly understanding ALL SIDES of an issue, weighing and evaluating them, and forming a well informed and structured conclusion based on as many of the facts as the individual can possibly access. Opinions are fluid, and can [and should] be constantly re-evaluated and sometimes changed based on any NEW information that comes to the fore. Impressions are stances adopted after receiving base knowledge of an issue, usually provided by ONE source, and are simply accepted without thought or research. "They say" is a common descriptor. "I read it on the net" is a much newer one. People with impressions are unable to site credentials of their sources or sources, and rarely understand the necessity of looking in to them at all. Impressions are adhered to and defended dogmatically, their proponents are inflexible, and consider any challenge to their impression to be an attack upon their intelligence, and they take it VERY personally. "It's in the newspaper, it must be true" The forming of an opinion is an intellectual process, it can take weeks or months to form a basis, and may never be wholly complete. The forming of an impression is an instantaneous process, and is the first step in forming an opinion, however MOST people stop at this step, and simply go to blind sheep-like acceptance, or "Chicken-Little" panic without doing any further work to LEARN about the issue. Someone with an OPINION will always acknowledge that they may be wrong. Someone with an impression will be absolutely certain they are right. Only a fool or a fanatic is absolutely certain of anything. But this is just my opinion.... I may be wrong.

[@romansejnoha9121]

They really did Goncharov decades early

[@xxrocketshark216xx4]

This is the kind of societal phenomenon that the internet made completely impossible to replicate that I really, REALLY yearn for. Like, I'd LOVE to see this kind of thing happen modern day, but again, internet kinda put a pin in it. It'd take all of three seconds to Google a fake book and realize it doesn't exist. But if it didn't...

[@jonzfriend]

Absolutely hysterical. As my friend's niece used to say, "It's real enough to pretend," and that's enough to convince people that the thing is LEGITIMATE. I love the people arguing over the book's merits or failures, the author or its historical accuracy, all the while never acknowledging that it DOESN'T EXIST. I'm reminded of the argument in "Stand By Me" over Superman and Mighty Mouse. Did someone do a review with "excerpts", and if so, where the hell did they get them?

[@whimsicalkrystal]

This has become one of my favorite videos on KZbin 😄 ❤

[@entropias_gonos]

Oh yes. I played Cuberpunk 2077 in the span of 2 days, and, let me tell you, magnificent game, no bugs, simply must be experienced to be appreciated!

[@cyberneticbutterfly8506]

And if you do x y and z in Zelda: Ocarina of time, then you can unlock a secret sky castle level. (10 year old me in 1995 spent a month printing and trying these fake game secrets before realizing it was a fraud)

[@iwannaseehowlongyoucanmakethis]

there's the yoshi in pokemon hoax. they deliberately made getting him so hard so that no one actually prove it. if i recall, it involves having both pokemon red and blue, both games completed with either one or both of them needs to have pokedex completed. You then need to level up a dragonite to 100 in the mewtwo chamber in cerulean cave.

[@JPLangley_]

I’ve been playing a whole lotta Splitgate. Gotta say, game of the year material. The game is so bizarrely shit in everything in both presentation and gameplay that I’m blown away by how beautiful the graphics are. I really feel this game will define the decade with how memorable it is. Speaking of which, I forgot I was writing about Splitgate halfway through.

[@youtubeuniversity3638]

...I think somebody actually made a Cuberpunk 2077 parody game though.

[@motioninmind6015]

I'm soooo thankful that his radio show is available online these days. I've been bingeing for months, I love it. I listened back in the 70s and never thought I'd be reliving the show in the 21st century.

[@OhNoBohNo]

I love how easily this could be recreated between a streamer and their Twitch chat…

[@phoebeaurum7113]

This would be a Jerma bit.

[@youtubeuniversity3638]

In either direction!

[@l.salisbury1253]

This has (sortta) happened in the music industry as well. In 1984 the punk/goth band The Damned, under the pseudonym "Naz Knight & the Nomads" released a soundtrack to a non-existent 60s psych movie "Give Daddy the Knife, Cindy". At least one 60s film historian reviewed it! (It was a generic review- guess he didn't want to admit he'd never even heard of it... and no doubt he had a deadline to meet!) In 1976 a Canadian prog trio Klaatu released their s/t debut. Since they wanted to music to "speak for itself" the members were not identified and the writing credits were simply billed to "Klaatu". Somewhere along the line this sparked a rumor that Klaatu were the BEATLES reunited under a pseudonym ! And when asked about Klaatu John Lennon simply laughed and responded "Next question, please!" Sales of that LP (which does sound a lot like post-"Sgt. Pepper" Beatles) increased ! Yet one radio station (DC101) wasn't buying it and decided to do what no one else even thought of: TRACE THE COPYRIGHT!! Upon doing so they did NOT see the names Lennon, McCartney or Harrison! Once word got out that album quickly disappeared into the cutout bin...!

[@juliaconnell]

this is the reason why I LOVE your content Austin - never know what I'm going to get, always interesting & intriguing. on a related note, ironically (I can't explain why without massive spoilers) - I just watched The Translators (2019) - blown away & still processing, extremely apt & appropriate to watch this after that - highly recommend though be warned it is French, so with subtitles - well worth the watch - esp apt (oh nice layered film...) given this topic...

[@mcfixer9503]

i need a translator to watch the translators

[@VagueNaming]

@@mcfixer9503 I need a translator to translate the translators

[@homelessperson5455]

I've already resigned to the fact I'm not in Uni for an education. I'm here for a clout scroll that impresses people into paying me more.

[@waterann9449]

This whole story about a fake story is great, but an even better real story is Goncharov by Martin Scorsese!

[@remyblas]

I can't even remember major details about books I have read more than once and these people can have discussions and write reviews about a fake work they didn't even read.

[@crusadr_4966]

I always love a good story of mass scale trolling. Thanks for sharing this amazing story lmfao. I find it amazing how many people can "improv" given almost 0 to no information at all.

[@BuiltatBlackjacks]

Not so amazing, it's,basically an essential life skill these days.

[@WoolfJ35]

New York hasn't even changed hell the rest of the Country became this smh

[@thatsallreviews]

I clicked so fast, my fingers are on fire.

[@anthonydavis5288]

I hope in the 9 minutes that it's been you have been able to put your fingers out

[@thatsallreviews]

@@anthonydavis5288 Had to be taken to hospice, video is good though

[@anthonydavis5288]

@@thatsallreviews Yeah I enjoyed the Video too. I was going to say I've already read "I, Libertine" as a joke but come to find out it is real. 😂

[@jackaloopt]

That’s absolutely amazing. I wonder if there ever was a study done as to why people do this. If multiple people came to me and asked if I have read, seen or heard something that didn’t exist the answer would always be “no”.

[@paultheaudaciousbradford6772]

I read the first 15-20 pages of “I, Libertine” and it was so far beyond awful that I had to stop. I truly couldn’t bear it anymore. There is - this is simply one example - an eight page (what else can I call it) transcription of a conversation between the young protagonist, Lance, and a late middle aged hackney named, incredibly, Higger-Piggott (almost, but not quite, witty). It is clear to me that Sturgess spent about as much time writing it as I did reading it. It’s logorrhea, nothing more. Sturgess describes, with evident relish, Lance’s fine teeth, especially the upper right incisor. Then he goes on with a few thousand words or so and then, inexplicably goes back to the topic of Lance’s teeth. It was awful, so very very awful. It must have been completed in three or four sleepless, drunken days. It wasn’t even bad enough to be good. Every now and and then there seems to be a lame attempt at humor, but the effort of making something authentically funny seemed to be beyond the reach of the author. Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!! Ugh!!!

[@kevinbergin9971]

I just don't know if I can believe you right now.

[@paultheaudaciousbradford6772]

@@kevinbergin9971 I’d be interested to read your review.

[@idk-xs5nz]

Oh, so this is what the hit film Goncharov was inspired by! I noticed some really cool references in the film.