Saturday, February 11, 2017

Lying clickbait: Radical celebrity transformations

One type of lying clickbait often used by content promotion services involves pairing a celebrity with a photo of a freaky-looking person. The clickbait uses text alleging that the weird-looking person is either the celebrity today or their offspring.
The first photo is the recognizable celebrity and the second photo is a mug shot or portrait of a drug user or an oddball.
Examples I’ve previously highlighted involved Kellie Williams, Steve Zahn, Anna Chlumsky and Lisa Bonet.
Here’s a fresh example involving Alison Arngrim, a child actress from “Little House on the Prairie.”
A picture of her from that classic show is paired with a mug shot of a drug user for a clickbait article titled “43 stars who’ve grown into being horrible looking creatures.”
The woman in the red shirt is believed to be a meth user. Her picture is featured in the internet meme “Maybe she’s born with it … maybe it’s methamphetamine,” a takeoff on the ad slogan for cosmetics firm Maybelline.



Here’s what the adult Arngrim really looks like.


A Revcontent article titled “Harrison Ford has pretty much given up on his son” uses a photo of Ford next to a man who’s not his son. The other man, Jason Walter Barnum, has scary face and head tattoos.



1 comment:

Aunt Chrissy said...

Just saw that Allison Armgrim ad! Thanks for doing the research - I was a little worried!!