I have good news to share: The 193-year-old Jonathan the tortoise, considered to be the oldest living land animal in the world, isn’t dead after all. Despite multiple outlets covering his passing yesterday, it turns out that he’s alive and well, and that the rumors of his death were all the result of a hoax connected to someone trying to allegedly scam folks into handing over cryptocurrency because we live in the dumbest and worst era of humanity.
On April 1—which should have given every editor and writer involved pause—the BBC, USA Today, and other outlets all reported that Jonathan had passed away. The source of this tragic news? A post from someone claiming to be the elderly tortoise’s veterinarian. On Twitter, someone claiming to be Joe Hollins, the tortoise’s actual vet, posted: “Heartbroken to share that our beloved Jonathan, the world’s oldest living land animal, has passed away today peacefully on Saint Helena.” That was a lie.
USA Today was able to contact the real Hollins and learned that Johnathan was alive and kicking. Or, well, crawling, but you get the point.
“Jonathan the tortoise is very much alive,” the vet told the outlet. “I believe on [Twitter], the person purporting to be me is asking for crypto donations, so it’s not even an April Fool’s joke. It’s a con.”
The fake Hollins has since confirmed that it was all a hoax and claims that people have actually sent him cryptocurrency, which might sound hard to believe, but then again, I can imagine at least one person with some bitcoin or whatever burning a hole in their digital wallet thought this was funny enough to tip the person behind the joke. If you check out the account on Twitter, you can quickly find posts about crypto and finance that seem very out of character for Hollins. The outlets that covered this so quickly without checking more should feel a bit embarrassed, but then again, who would even think to pull off a hoax like this and use it to try to get digital coins out of people? Weird world, folks.
I can tell you this: When that tortoise actually kicks (sorry, slowly knocks over) the bucket, every outlet is going to do a ton of extra verifying before publishing about it.