"Hot Problems" - Yes, Of Course Its Fake

UPDATED 4/19: See updates at bottom for identities of who is behind the video.



This showed up on YouTube on April 15 and went viral on Tuesday after Huffington Post and other websites pimped it as the "next Rebecca Black".

Of course, this one is fake though.

It has some connection to CalState-Northridge film geeks. I may update this further, but just wanted to post to confirm for anyone who cares - yes, its fake. Fascinating though, that HuffPo and others posted it without caring that it was fake -- they just wanted to pretend it might be real, because that's more fun, I guess (and guarantees more ad impressions).

Here's some tweets I recently had with someone else confirming it:


As of April 17, when the story first broke, "OldBaileyProductions" which uploaded the video to youtube, had other videos on its channel, related to film projects at Cal-State Northridge. These were all quickly removed as the vid took off, and the channel reworked to be about "Double Take" the band (which "band" has no facebook, twitter, or other presence online at the moment.)

Just after OldBailey uploaded the video though, it did post on another video a joke about its new bad video. The post says "Come check out my page if you want to get a fucking laugh at the new artist 'Double Take'!!!" (The comment was made on the Lexi St. George video -- Lexi is a post-Rebecca Black creation by ARK Music Factory).


OldBailey has some connection, I'm not sure what, to Alex Goyette, who posts funny parody vids on Youtube as well, under the JouleTheif channel. On one old JouleTheif video, OldBailey posts that Alex is his roommmate.

ETA 9:42am PDT: Fuse has spoken with "OldBailey Productions." This confirms the CalStateNorthridge connection again.

ETA 11:10am PDT: One of the girls' (alleged, not proven yet) moms posted on the Fuse article:


ETA: 12:19pm PDT - It is now is clear I should mention that two of the original tags on the video (later removed as of late April 17) were "Drew G*****" and "Lauren W*****" - probably the names of the girls.

Yes, it is. Since they appear to be minors I will not post any additional information about them.


ETA 5:30am PDT 4/19 - The song is finally up on itunes now.


ETA 4/17 5:50am: Old Bailey Productions is probably a guy named Connor Abrams (at least he used to be a big part of it). He has videos up on other sites like this one credited to Old Bailey. He's from the same hometown and high school as the two girls in the vid.

ETA 4/17 6:04am: And Connor Abrams of Northridge, CA currently has a soundcloud account as "oldbailey", clearly he has the ability to record similar music.


ETA 6:15am PDT: Here's a radio interview the girls (Lauren and Drew) did this morning: kiss92.5. The girls don't admit its fake, but clearly they imply its a joke. It might have been more fun if they claimed it was real.

ETA 4/19 10:56am PDT: The girls did interviews with MTV and CNN this morning, based on their new twitter account @DoubleTakeMus1 (which I can verify is real, despite it looking new and fakey.)

tamtampamela (God is so Good!) is a HOAX people!

YouTuber "tamtampamela" is rising up the charts due to her recently posted video, GOD IS SO GOOD!!! (March 13, 2011, currently 421,329 views), where she praises God for the Japanese earthquake/tsunami as sending a message to atheists.

Her current oldest video dates to January 2010, and she's been posting similar over-the-top-evangelical-whackjob videos for the past year. Ones like this make it pretty obvious that she's can't be for real:

"Simple Ways to Remember Simple Teachings"

She claims she learned this song in Sunday school, "Revelation, Revelation, 21:8, 21:8, liars go to hell, liars go to hell, burn burn burn, burn burn burn!"

What is the purpose of the hoax? To expose the ridiculousness of Christians who believe the Bible is literally true and use it for hateful purposes.

Her youtube channel also has a list of quotes such as ""If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being. - --Jerry Falwell" She also wears internet-cool t-shirts in some vids, in-jokes that a real bible girl would never know about.

Lastly, "TamTamPamela" also is a poster at the Landover Baptist Church website, which is a spoof forum about Christianity. She recently changed her username to "Sister Pamela" but its the same person.


same post with new username (prior image came from a google cache):



There's little question her performances are pretty brilliant and will dupe many people. Some say she went over the line with the tsunami video - what do you think?

ETA 4:30am Pacific, 3/15/11: I understand that Pamela posted a coming out video, which is already gone because she closed her account.

• Random youtuber repost of original God Is So Good screed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP-sSeqPywI
  
• Tamtampamela's admission video repost: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBZMCtIXjIA
  
• Another forum she trolled: Christianchat.com thread (May 2010)

Andraluvs2hoax: Another fake viral video thingie

So, I stumbled across Andraluvs2sing today, aka Andra Hoelsted, aka the latest youtube fictional / fake / hoax floating around the internet. Not that I really get riled up about these faux 'next big things.' In fact, I find them fascinating. But I wonder what the purpose of this one is.

Andraluvs2sing started her youtube channel on April 23, 2008. She posted, that same day, a video of her purportedly singing as a youngster. It has 23,000 views and 1 comment, and the functionality to see where external links to youtube are coming from is disabled. Hmmm ....

Andra's next three vids show that she's a very poor guitar player, but a very attractive young woman. Practicing A New Song has already racked up an impressive 292,743 views, but only 26 comments (and again, any external links data is disabled.) But one commenter explains the high view count: "this video is showing automatically on facebook, that's why!"

Although Andra is hawtt, surely this video wasn't featured by facebook on its merit.

Then, a la lonelygirl15, Andra starts some drama. On May 16, she posted a 21 second clip "does your teacher act like this with students?!!". This purports to show some questionable behavior of one of her teachers in a car with a fellow female student. Of course, she wants youtubers advice on what to do. This vid currently has 695,814 views & 121 comments, a suspicious ratio. In the comments, a few people do smell a fake, though most of the others are trying to give Andra advice.

Um, tell the principal? Have a threesome? Which one will get more youtube views?

So, about a week later, Andra posted a vid of advice she received from another young beauty, a Kari Sweets. "Kari Sweets Advice LEAVE COMMENT!". Whaaa? apparently Sweets is a "minor internet porn starlet" of the Maxim type (i.e., not 100% nude). And while its not only odd that some Internet-famous chick would post a video response to this girl's car stalking video, its also very odd that Andra posted it on her own channel, instead of this appearing on some channel claiming to be Kari Sweets' youtube channel (if she has one). (There's also another video of Kari talking about the situation on some other youtube channel.)

Then, yesterday (june 5), youtube channel illumistream, which is a commercially done production that has been having great youtube success lately by posting short videos of "sex advice" with hawtt thumbnails, also posted the same kari sweets video that Andra did, calling it "Not Your Average Sex Celebrity Tape" (except with a lurid thumbnail added).

Illumistream's Video Description: The Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian sex tapes became Internet sensations -- but this isn't THAT kind of sex tape. Kari Sweets takes a break from her on-line modeling career to give some advice to Andra Hoelsted on her unfortunate situation.
The whole story broke when Andra told everything on her blog, http://andraluvs2sing.wordpress.com. Watch the video to get Kari's perspective - and support Andra's friend by visiting the blog:
http://andraluvs2sing.wordpress.com

Surely that's enough for anyone to realize its a hoax.

But, like any good fictive viral story, Andra's faux existence is not confined to youtube. She also has a wordpress blog, which is telling the story of her attempt to become a successful musician. This involves her realizing she can't play guitar for shit, but luckily she has met up with some guitarist ... do i smell a band forming?

And, of course she has a facebook, and a myspace, and even a digg account, where her only submission has been to digg this Amazing New Female Artist ... well, golly gee, its digging herself!

The backstory among these sites gives her full name as Andra Hoelsted, of Charlotte, North Carolina. The pictures you can find on her myspace / blog / digg are all very professional looking (and never have anyone else in them other then her).

So, its another another fictional viral thingie. But why? And who's the girl?

UPDATE - June 18, 2008: See new post, its marketing for a movie called "On the Doll."