No, You Idiots, an NYC Restaurant Is Not Serving Human Meat

In March 2016, simply as we had been all being slowly dragged into the Dumbest Timeline, an internet site known as Empire Information printed a chunk with the headline “New York Metropolis Restaurant Turns into First to Get License to Serve Human Flesh.” Within the paragraphs that had been posted beneath a inventory photograph of a smiling chef, the location mentioned that the restaurant, known as SKIN, had been granted its license after “petitioning the state and federal governments over legal guidelines towards cannibalism.”

Empire Information quoted the restaurant’s “four-star Michelin chef” who mentioned that he would pay a good value to anybody who could be keen to donate their our bodies to be eaten by his clients. This, as you have already found out by now, is whole bullshit. For starters, Michelin’s high honor is three stars, not 4, and for next-ers, none of this has occurred, nor will it ever occur—however that did not cease individuals from believing it.

“OMG. I will completely develop into vegetarian. The place is that this world coming to??” one girl commented. “First the elites have a CA cannibal restaurant and now NY is getting an precise LICENSE to do that,” one other added. ” We’re snowballing into hell at break-neck velocity of us!”

One of many story’s gullible victims was one other web site known as Elite Information Press, which appears to be primarily based in Uganda. On Thursday, it copied and pasted the total textual content of the Empire Information piece, and even used the identical inventory chef pic. Because of this, the “LORD, THEY’RE EATIN PEOPLE IN NYC” factor has made its approach across the web once more, most likely due to individuals like your least favourite uncle, the one who will attempt to discover a strategy to convey up Benghazi through the Thanksgiving meal.

Inside a couple of hours, Snopes had executed its finest to debunk the story once more, mentioning that it was “Labeled Satire” on the Empire Information website. “This merchandise was not a factual recounting of real-life occasions,” it wrote. “The article originated with an internet site that describes its output as being humorous or satirical in nature, as follows: ‘Empire Information is meant for leisure functions solely. Our web site and social media content material makes use of solely fictional names, besides in circumstances of public determine and movie star parody or satirization.'”

That textual content is within the ‘About/Disclaimer’ part of Empire Information, and it seems on the foot of each web page—though it is nonetheless barely terrifying that somebody would even want a disclaimer to find out that every little thing it publishes is whole fiction.

A few of the posts which are at the moment on the location’s entrance web page embody “Girl Will get Pregnant After Sleeping in Resort with Soiled Sheets,” “Ringling Bros. Shuts Down Circus Occasion After Trapeze Artist By accident Defecates on Viewers,” and “Cats are Superior to Canine in Each Means, New Research by Cat Scientist Confirms”—and that one is accompanied by a photograph of a person with a cat’s head staring intently at a DNA helix.

So, for what must be the final time, no, a restaurant known as SKIN will not be serving human flesh in New York Metropolis. And no, your uncle should not have a Fb account both.

This text initially appeared on VICE US.