Last month, a wave of fear rippled through the red-haired percentage of the populace. The sun was setting on the auburn empire: coppergeddon had arrived. It was the Ginger Apocalypse. Scientists (yes, them again, the doomsaying fiends!) had predicted that the change in weather patterns caused by climate change would have another, darker effect the eradication of the gene that caused red hair within only a few centuries. The word spread across the internet like wildfire. The science was incontrovertible, though unless you think that incontrovertible means not able to be denied, in which case no, it wasnt, it was actually seriously flawed. It presupposed that climate change would mean more or less clouds (up for debate), that a single gene controlled the expression of red hair in people (its a combination of genes that causes ginger hair), that red hair and pale skin evolved in people to allow more absorption of sunlight and vitamin D (dark skinned people get just as much vitamin D as pale people do) and that as the clouds disappear, so too will the genes that allowed us to live happily in cloudy environments, and ergo! The redheads that carried those genes will quietly vanish from the human race. It transpired that, basically, it was all a lot more complicated than all that, and that the terrifying predictions had come from the same not-entirely-reliable source that had claimed to have discovered Adam and Eves grandson a couple of years earlier: a Scottish historian with no scientific background to speak of. This didnt stop several allegedly reputable news organisations, including the Independent and the Huffington post, from printing this nonsense, and 43,000 people from sharing the Independents article in the last six weeks or so. There are dozens of ridiculous fake news stories shared over and over by social media every year. Check out snopes.com or hoax-slayer.com if youre unsure or run a quick Google search! What are your favourite dumb shares online? Tell us in the comments
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
