Rumblr, a self-billed ‘Timder for fighting’ app, became international news yesterday, when the story broke that pent up and frustrated smartphone users were soon going to be battering each other in consensual, recreational fight clubs. But bad news for those hoping for a right hook with their right swipe, the app has been revealed to be a fake.
Aghast and outraged, hundreds of articles were hastily written and rewritten by news sites all over the world over the past few days, failing to see that the app doesn’t exist. Rumblr was, in fact, created by developer Jack Kim and marketing executive Matt Henderson as a viral stunt to launch their creative consultancy agency, von Hughes.
The con highlights the perils of viral news reporting, as there was very little evidence that the iOS app ever did exist, with the creators’ claims that app had been booted from the App Store for failing to meet Apple’s terms and conditions all a part of the myth and hoax. Screengrabs of the app in use posted in articles and shown in TV broadcasts as genuine were all mock ups produced by the – apparently very good at their jobs – agency.
The hoaxers conducted interviews where they claimed to have “raised relatively substantial funding from private American investors,” and had their app widely publicised, with articles in the New York Daily News, The Independent, The Daily Mail, Vice, Metro, The Daily Mirror, Digital Spy, Complex, and The Daily Star.
The creators also took part in TV interviews, where they outright lied about their work on bringing Rumblr to market:
