Fake News Article Screenshots

2021Photoshop / fake screenshot / satire formatactive

Also known as: Fake Headlines · Fake News Screenshots · Imposter Content

Fake News Article Screenshots are fabricated headlines mimicking real news outlets, driven by Twitter shitposter @JUNlPER from 2021 onward, designed to satirically fool mainstream journalists and social media audiences.

Fake News Article Screenshots are fabricated headlines designed to look like real news stories from major outlets, shared on social media usually for comedic or satirical purposes. The format exploded on Twitter in early 2022, driven largely by a single shitposter named @JUNlPER whose doctored screenshots fooled right-wing pundits, candy companies, and mainstream journalists alike2. What started as ironic trolling became a case study in how easily misinformation spreads when it confirms existing outrage narratives1.

fake news parody memeshoax memesmisinformation memesscreenshot memes

Overview

Fake News Article Screenshots are doctored images made to look like mobile screenshots of articles from established news outlets. They mimic the exact formatting, fonts, logos, and layout of sites like The Washington Post, CNBC, CBS News, and The Guardian4. Unlike older meme formats that obviously parodied news (like breaking news chyron edits), these screenshots are designed to be indistinguishable from real articles at first glance. The humor comes from the absurd content paired with the serious presentation, though the format's effectiveness as accidental misinformation is part of the joke itself2.

The practice of fabricating news headlines for laughs dates back to at least the early 2010s with the Breaking News Parodies trend, where memers inserted fake stories into screenshots of television news broadcasts4. But the modern wave of fake article screenshots, which imitated mobile web layouts rather than TV chyrons, kicked off on November 15, 2021, when Twitter user @JUNlPER posted a fabricated article claiming Elon Musk promised to let himself be executed if someone could solve three riddles4. JUNlPER credited @GoodPoliticGuy as an influence on the format4.

Origin & Background

Platform
Twitter
Key People
@JUNlPER / Juniper, @GoodPoliticGuy, @DoctorPenisBoob, @mailprivilege
Date
2021 (current wave), early 2010s (predecessors)

The practice of fabricating news headlines for laughs dates back to at least the early 2010s with the Breaking News Parodies trend, where memers inserted fake stories into screenshots of television news broadcasts. But the modern wave of fake article screenshots, which imitated mobile web layouts rather than TV chyrons, kicked off on November 15, 2021, when Twitter user @JUNlPER posted a fabricated article claiming Elon Musk promised to let himself be executed if someone could solve three riddles. JUNlPER credited @GoodPoliticGuy as an influence on the format.

How It Spread

JUNlPER's early posts circulated mainly within their own follower base, but that changed fast. On February 15, 2022, JUNlPER tweeted a doctored Pinkvilla headline suggesting Julia Fox said Kanye West "didn't like it when she went goblin mode". The fake quote spread beyond Twitter, with publications like The Focus treating it as genuine. News outlets scrambled to publish "what is goblin mode" explainers, chasing search traffic on a quote that never existed.

JUNlPER pinned a screenshot collage showing the fake post alongside earnest reactions to it, captioning it: "it's incredibly easy to create fake news it's actually ridiculous lol".

On April 6, 2022, Twitter user @DoctorPenisBoob posted a series of fake Google search results showing fabricated headlines from CNBC, The Guardian, and CBS News about Elon Musk being pegged by Grimes. The tweet pulled in over 68,000 likes and nearly 5,000 quote tweets.

Ten days later, on April 16, JUNlPER dropped the big one. A fake headline reading "Snickers are officially caving and removing the world renowned dick vein from the candy bar" earned roughly 202,500 likes in three days. The backstory made it land: Mars had recently redesigned the green M&M character to be less sexualized, swapping her go-go boots for sneakers to "better reflect a more dynamic, progressive world". Tucker Carlson covered the M&M redesign on Fox News as an example of "wokeifying" candy. Social media users had joked about "deveining" Snickers bars since at least 2009, and in January 2022, the website Mandatory published a tongue-in-cheek article with a fake corporate statement about replacing Snickers' textured coating.

JUNlPER's screenshot pulled all these threads together. Even though the headline was fake, a follow-up photo of a suspiciously smooth Snickers bar (pulled from an old Reddit post) convinced many the story was real. Snickers itself had to tweet reassuring fans the vein wasn't going anywhere. On April 18, 2022, Snopes published a formal fact-check debunking the claim.

On May 16, 2022, Twitter user @mailprivilege posted a fake Washington Post article titled "This dog is the new face of online homophobia," crediting it to reporter Taylor Lorenz. The dog pictured was a white dachshund named Whitney Chewston, whose gay owners had already told Know Your Meme she was "not homophobic in real life". Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' press secretary Christina Pushaw tweeted the fake screenshot to mock Lorenz, apparently believing it was genuine. Washington Post reporter Aaron Blake pointed out that "it's a headline cut and pasted on to our template from another website". Lorenz herself joined in, tweeting "Oh my god she thinks it's real" and "I'm laughing so hard".

How to Use This Meme

The format follows a simple recipe. Take a headline from a major news outlet's mobile site, then replace the text with something absurd while keeping the layout, fonts, and branding intact. The fake headline typically plays on an existing news cycle or cultural moment, pushing the real story's logic to an extreme conclusion. Post the screenshot with a caption expressing mock disbelief ("no fucking way," "WHAT," or similar). The most effective versions ride existing outrage waves, making the fake headline just plausible enough that people who are already mad about something will share it without checking. Creators typically use basic image editing tools to match the outlet's visual template.

Cultural Impact

Rolling Stone interviewed JUNlPER for their "Don't Let This Flop" podcast, marking one of the first times a shitposter behind viral fake screenshots got mainstream media attention for the practice. JUNlPER told Rolling Stone the posts were "a satirical way to point out how just ridiculous [the media] are about some of these things, how they'll take these stories and kind of run with it and not even verify anything".

The Snickers incident forced a major candy brand into crisis communications mode over something that never happened. The Whitney Chewston dog incident exposed a sitting governor's press secretary failing the exact kind of media literacy her job title implies. The goblin mode fake kickstarted an entire news cycle, with outlets publishing explainers about a term that entered public consciousness through a fabricated quote.

JUNlPER acknowledged the ethical tension directly: "At the end of the day, deceiving a lot of people in this way can be harmful, I'll be honest," citing Fox Business coverage that included "boomers" outraged about "woke mobs freaking out over candy bars". But the creator framed it as deep irony that simply didn't translate at scale: "I guess when you do deep irony and sarcasm, it doesn't translate when it gets that big".

The format also highlighted a structural vulnerability in online media. As JUNlPER put it: "It really reinforces to me just how easily you can trick people... if I had malicious intent, just how easy [it would be to] make a fake story about, say, trans people, and get it picked up by people with malicious intentions".

Fun Facts

The Mandatory website published a satirical "Snickers deveining" article with a fake corporate quote months before JUNlPER's viral screenshot, but the website version didn't fool anyone. The screenshot format was the key ingredient.

Snickers dick vein jokes existed online since at least 2009, a full 13 years before the fake headline made it international news.

The smooth Snickers photo JUNlPER used as "evidence" was likely the result of chocolate melting and reforming, a manufacturing error, or some other mundane cause.

JUNlPER's display name at the time of the viral posts was "Transgender Marx".

Whitney Chewston's owners Ben Campbell and Logan Hickman are themselves a gay couple, making the "homophobic dog" premise extra absurd.

Derivatives & Variations

Snickers Dick Vein saga

— JUNlPER's April 2022 fake headline spawned its own sub-meme, with Snickers officially responding and ongoing jokes about veinless candy bars[2].

Goblin Mode discourse

— The fabricated Julia Fox quote triggered a real cultural conversation about "goblin mode" as a lifestyle concept, despite the originating quote being entirely fictional[4].

Whitney Chewston homophobia dog

— The fake Washington Post article about a homophobic dachshund became its own meme after DeSantis' press secretary fell for it, with Lorenz jokingly offering to write the article for real[3].

Breaking News Parodies

— The precursor format using TV news chyrons rather than mobile article screenshots, active since the early 2010s[4].

Fake Google Search Results

— @DoctorPenisBoob's April 2022 contribution extended the format beyond single-article screenshots to fabricated search result pages showing multiple fake outlets[4].

Frequently Asked Questions

Fake News Article Screenshots

2021Photoshop / fake screenshot / satire formatactive

Also known as: Fake Headlines · Fake News Screenshots · Imposter Content

Fake News Article Screenshots are fabricated headlines mimicking real news outlets, driven by Twitter shitposter @JUNlPER from 2021 onward, designed to satirically fool mainstream journalists and social media audiences.

Fake News Article Screenshots are fabricated headlines designed to look like real news stories from major outlets, shared on social media usually for comedic or satirical purposes. The format exploded on Twitter in early 2022, driven largely by a single shitposter named @JUNlPER whose doctored screenshots fooled right-wing pundits, candy companies, and mainstream journalists alike. What started as ironic trolling became a case study in how easily misinformation spreads when it confirms existing outrage narratives.

fake news parody memes hoax memes misinformation memes screenshot memes

Overview

Fake News Article Screenshots are doctored images made to look like mobile screenshots of articles from established news outlets. They mimic the exact formatting, fonts, logos, and layout of sites like The Washington Post, CNBC, CBS News, and The Guardian. Unlike older meme formats that obviously parodied news (like breaking news chyron edits), these screenshots are designed to be indistinguishable from real articles at first glance. The humor comes from the absurd content paired with the serious presentation, though the format's effectiveness as accidental misinformation is part of the joke itself.

The practice of fabricating news headlines for laughs dates back to at least the early 2010s with the Breaking News Parodies trend, where memers inserted fake stories into screenshots of television news broadcasts. But the modern wave of fake article screenshots, which imitated mobile web layouts rather than TV chyrons, kicked off on November 15, 2021, when Twitter user @JUNlPER posted a fabricated article claiming Elon Musk promised to let himself be executed if someone could solve three riddles. JUNlPER credited @GoodPoliticGuy as an influence on the format.

Origin & Background

Platform
Twitter
Key People
@JUNlPER / Juniper, @GoodPoliticGuy, @DoctorPenisBoob, @mailprivilege
Date
2021 (current wave), early 2010s (predecessors)

The practice of fabricating news headlines for laughs dates back to at least the early 2010s with the Breaking News Parodies trend, where memers inserted fake stories into screenshots of television news broadcasts. But the modern wave of fake article screenshots, which imitated mobile web layouts rather than TV chyrons, kicked off on November 15, 2021, when Twitter user @JUNlPER posted a fabricated article claiming Elon Musk promised to let himself be executed if someone could solve three riddles. JUNlPER credited @GoodPoliticGuy as an influence on the format.

How It Spread

JUNlPER's early posts circulated mainly within their own follower base, but that changed fast. On February 15, 2022, JUNlPER tweeted a doctored Pinkvilla headline suggesting Julia Fox said Kanye West "didn't like it when she went goblin mode". The fake quote spread beyond Twitter, with publications like The Focus treating it as genuine. News outlets scrambled to publish "what is goblin mode" explainers, chasing search traffic on a quote that never existed.

JUNlPER pinned a screenshot collage showing the fake post alongside earnest reactions to it, captioning it: "it's incredibly easy to create fake news it's actually ridiculous lol".

On April 6, 2022, Twitter user @DoctorPenisBoob posted a series of fake Google search results showing fabricated headlines from CNBC, The Guardian, and CBS News about Elon Musk being pegged by Grimes. The tweet pulled in over 68,000 likes and nearly 5,000 quote tweets.

Ten days later, on April 16, JUNlPER dropped the big one. A fake headline reading "Snickers are officially caving and removing the world renowned dick vein from the candy bar" earned roughly 202,500 likes in three days. The backstory made it land: Mars had recently redesigned the green M&M character to be less sexualized, swapping her go-go boots for sneakers to "better reflect a more dynamic, progressive world". Tucker Carlson covered the M&M redesign on Fox News as an example of "wokeifying" candy. Social media users had joked about "deveining" Snickers bars since at least 2009, and in January 2022, the website Mandatory published a tongue-in-cheek article with a fake corporate statement about replacing Snickers' textured coating.

JUNlPER's screenshot pulled all these threads together. Even though the headline was fake, a follow-up photo of a suspiciously smooth Snickers bar (pulled from an old Reddit post) convinced many the story was real. Snickers itself had to tweet reassuring fans the vein wasn't going anywhere. On April 18, 2022, Snopes published a formal fact-check debunking the claim.

On May 16, 2022, Twitter user @mailprivilege posted a fake Washington Post article titled "This dog is the new face of online homophobia," crediting it to reporter Taylor Lorenz. The dog pictured was a white dachshund named Whitney Chewston, whose gay owners had already told Know Your Meme she was "not homophobic in real life". Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' press secretary Christina Pushaw tweeted the fake screenshot to mock Lorenz, apparently believing it was genuine. Washington Post reporter Aaron Blake pointed out that "it's a headline cut and pasted on to our template from another website". Lorenz herself joined in, tweeting "Oh my god she thinks it's real" and "I'm laughing so hard".

How to Use This Meme

The format follows a simple recipe. Take a headline from a major news outlet's mobile site, then replace the text with something absurd while keeping the layout, fonts, and branding intact. The fake headline typically plays on an existing news cycle or cultural moment, pushing the real story's logic to an extreme conclusion. Post the screenshot with a caption expressing mock disbelief ("no fucking way," "WHAT," or similar). The most effective versions ride existing outrage waves, making the fake headline just plausible enough that people who are already mad about something will share it without checking. Creators typically use basic image editing tools to match the outlet's visual template.

Cultural Impact

Rolling Stone interviewed JUNlPER for their "Don't Let This Flop" podcast, marking one of the first times a shitposter behind viral fake screenshots got mainstream media attention for the practice. JUNlPER told Rolling Stone the posts were "a satirical way to point out how just ridiculous [the media] are about some of these things, how they'll take these stories and kind of run with it and not even verify anything".

The Snickers incident forced a major candy brand into crisis communications mode over something that never happened. The Whitney Chewston dog incident exposed a sitting governor's press secretary failing the exact kind of media literacy her job title implies. The goblin mode fake kickstarted an entire news cycle, with outlets publishing explainers about a term that entered public consciousness through a fabricated quote.

JUNlPER acknowledged the ethical tension directly: "At the end of the day, deceiving a lot of people in this way can be harmful, I'll be honest," citing Fox Business coverage that included "boomers" outraged about "woke mobs freaking out over candy bars". But the creator framed it as deep irony that simply didn't translate at scale: "I guess when you do deep irony and sarcasm, it doesn't translate when it gets that big".

The format also highlighted a structural vulnerability in online media. As JUNlPER put it: "It really reinforces to me just how easily you can trick people... if I had malicious intent, just how easy [it would be to] make a fake story about, say, trans people, and get it picked up by people with malicious intentions".

Fun Facts

The Mandatory website published a satirical "Snickers deveining" article with a fake corporate quote months before JUNlPER's viral screenshot, but the website version didn't fool anyone. The screenshot format was the key ingredient.

Snickers dick vein jokes existed online since at least 2009, a full 13 years before the fake headline made it international news.

The smooth Snickers photo JUNlPER used as "evidence" was likely the result of chocolate melting and reforming, a manufacturing error, or some other mundane cause.

JUNlPER's display name at the time of the viral posts was "Transgender Marx".

Whitney Chewston's owners Ben Campbell and Logan Hickman are themselves a gay couple, making the "homophobic dog" premise extra absurd.

Derivatives & Variations

Snickers Dick Vein saga

— JUNlPER's April 2022 fake headline spawned its own sub-meme, with Snickers officially responding and ongoing jokes about veinless candy bars[2].

Goblin Mode discourse

— The fabricated Julia Fox quote triggered a real cultural conversation about "goblin mode" as a lifestyle concept, despite the originating quote being entirely fictional[4].

Whitney Chewston homophobia dog

— The fake Washington Post article about a homophobic dachshund became its own meme after DeSantis' press secretary fell for it, with Lorenz jokingly offering to write the article for real[3].

Breaking News Parodies

— The precursor format using TV news chyrons rather than mobile article screenshots, active since the early 2010s[4].

Fake Google Search Results

— @DoctorPenisBoob's April 2022 contribution extended the format beyond single-article screenshots to fabricated search result pages showing multiple fake outlets[4].

Frequently Asked Questions