In a shocking display of collective gullibility, thousands of people gathered at the Brooklyn Bridge last night to watch fireworks that never came. Because who needs actual events when you can just make some fake videos with AI and share them on social media?
According to eyewitnesses (or rather, victims), crowds were duped into braving the cold for a non-existent celebration. They showed up with cameras in hand, phones at the ready, only to be met with... nothing. The only sound was the distant hum of disappointment and the occasional party horn blaring "Happy New Year" in a futile attempt to salvage what had clearly become a terrible idea.
"It was like they wanted us to feel stupid," said TikTok user @dhruvsaha, who had apparently never heard of basic fact-checking. "I mean, I've lived in NYC for eight years and I still fell for it."
Meanwhile, Instagram influencer Marco Abbiati took to social media to wag his finger at the creators of these fake fireworks videos, warning us all about the dangers of trusting information online. Yeah, because that's exactly what happened here – a group of people collectively decided to trust some AI-generated videos and were subsequently disappointed.
As one Twitter user so aptly put it: "Only in New York City can you get pranked by a bunch of strangers on social media."