Ever wondered what Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Mayawati would write on her Facebook profile? Hazarding a guess is a fake Facebook profile of the politician, created as a quirky email forward, that’s doing the rounds lately. Called Behenji Mayawati on the profile, her status message says, “Why
do these courts have problems with my pet projects?” And responding to her comments are (fake) Amar Singh and Rahul Gandhi.
This spoof has been created by Rahul Roshan, 29, an independent consultant, who started Faking News.com in August. A ‘news satire’ website, Faking News presents daily events with a bizarre, humorous spin. For instance, current headlines on the site are: ‘Pakistan arrests Indian parrot on charges of spying and sabotage’, and ‘Millions injured as series of Tendulkar debates rock India’. Roshan says, “The fake profile of Mayawati is just Photoshop work. There isn’t any fake profile on Facebook as that would be a violation. The idea came after Mayawati started splurging on Ambedkar parks, but all through it’s a spoof, like everything else on my website.”
Having started out as a blog in 2008, the website today gets 25,000 hits per day, says Roshan. He explains that Faking News came into the limelight after a spoof on a popular deodorant brand was published. The story read, ‘Unable to attract even a single girl, frustrated man sues deodorant company.’ International news agencies thought the story was real and published it. “This created a lot of controversies and I had to personally clarify that it was a spoof.” As of now, their most popular gimmick is the Mayawati profile. It already has thousands of fans who are forwarding it around.
Manisha Kapoor, a management trainee, says, “This is hilarious! A friend of mine forwarded this on email and I just kept laughing after I had read it.”