With the introduction of the Internet in people’s lives, rumors can spread faster than any wildfire. Some are very funny and others not so much. One of the big news this years was a big find a Professor Losail claimed to have discovered. There was also a rumor going around about an apparent presidential ban on a fruit….
Dragon skeleton found in North Iceland
This piece of false new spread around the world like crazy and before long, the below video had been viewed 5.7 million times. Professor Losail had apparently found he discovered a female dragon skeleton during a routine oil drilling, stating that the “ancient creature had a wing span of 60 feet and a 12-inch-long tooth. “Coincidentally”, the video that first turned up on a Facebook page, was posted on April’s fool day, a perfect day to revive myths. The post also included a note quoting Professor Losail, a dragon expert at the Institute of Dragonology, which reads, “They said we were mad to set up our dragon research program, but who’s laughing now?”. Well, it was fun and Iceland got more exposure on line!
President of Iceland bans pine apple on pizza
Early this year, the President of Iceland, Guðni Th. Jóhannesson, visited a school in Akureyri, North Iceland. While there the students were allowed to ask him all kinds of questions. One student asked him what his thoughts was on pine apple as toppings on pizza. The President answered that it was fundamentally wrong and if it was within his powers, he would ban it all together.
Of course he meant it as seriously as someone would say “I’d rather die than…..”. But, with the power of internet and click hungry news medias, it went viral. It went so far that the President felt forced to explain himself in English and Icelandic on his Facebook page where he wrote “I do not have the power to make laws which forbid people to put pineapples on their pizza, I am glad I do not hold such power.”.
Iceland Will Pay $5,000/m To Immigrants Who Marry Icelandic Women
During the months of February and March, a rumor was going around saying that the Icelandic government will pay any immigrant $5,000 if they would marry an Icelandic woman. Apparently there was a shortage of men here causing this hoax to go viral. This piece of “news” came from a “news site” who makes their money from clicks. They wrote:
“Perhaps the most prominent of our attention the story that it’s
because of the high proportion of females than males have
resorted government of that country to the solution is to
grant $ 5,000 per month per immigrant marries Icelandic, and
that the priority in this resolution will go to North Africa’s population”
The truth is there are actually more men than women here and the above statement was just false news. In other words, this was most likely part of yet another Nigeria scam.
The pic has nothing to do with the scam and is from “A Honeymooniversary“
Iceland overthrows government
This happened once in modern times but after the crash in 2008, the Internet has been swamped with untrue memes about how so many bankers have been thrown in jail, how everything got back to normal. Some bankers got sentences in open prisons but very little of the lost money has been recovered.
The demonstrations in Iceland 2008
The 10 biggest weed smoking countries
This is the latest of false news. According to many news sites, Iceland is suppose to top all countries in the world when it comes to smoking weed. The numbers are suppose to be a staggering 18.3%. We only need to look at how these people came to this conclusion to know it is wrong. The "research" people said:
“The theory is that since alcohol was prohibited from 1915 all the way
up until 1989, weed became the natural vice of choice for its citizens.”
Alcohol was never forbidden, only beer which became legal again on the 1st of March, 1989. Secondly, something that is illegal must have a hard time becoming the "natural choice". When it comes to kids, Iceland has one of the lowest numbers of users in Europe. The latest numbers (2017) from The Social Science Research Institute, the number of regular users might have increased but it’s around 4 to 5%, way off the number that is floating around in the digital world claiming 18.3% of Icelanders are regular potheads. So the numbers in the map below are just totally wrong for Iceland.
A couple of days ago there was also news about a Unicorn found in Iceland but we won’t even go there! So, when you read something that sounds off or straight untrue, it probably is! Iceland has its share of fake news, some are just funny, others less so. You can still order your pizza with pine apple toppings but you men won't get 5000 dollars for marrying the beautiful women of Iceland!
Happy Camping! #WohoCamper
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