Sometimes, the internet serves up a story so absurd that it feels like satire—until it’s not. Enter Newsweek’s latest misstep, where they decided that an obviously joking tweet about a fictional 18th-century painter needed a serious fact-check. Spoiler alert: it didn’t.
Here’s what happened. A social media user named “bone” posted a tweet with an AI-generated image and the caption: “This 1721 painting by Deitz Nuützen predicted the Trump-Elon-RFK McDonalds dinner.” If you’re already laughing, congratulations, you have a sense of humor. The sheer absurdity of the tweet, paired with the painter’s suspiciously cheeky name (“Deez Nutz”—yes, really), should have screamed “joke” to anyone with a functioning irony detector.
This 1721 painting by Deitz Nuützen predicted the Trump-Elon-RFK McDonalds dinner pic.twitter.com/CM9xDNmaKG
— bone (@boneGPT) November 18, 2024
Instead, Newsweek brought in the fact-checkers. Yes, they gave this tweet the same investigative energy usually reserved for debunking moon landing conspiracies or vaccine misinformation. Because clearly, the world needed to know whether Deitz Nuützen was a legitimate Baroque artist with prophetic visions of Big Macs.
The best part? The tweet wasn’t even subtle. It was a perfectly executed bit of internet trolling. Elon Musk himself joined in the fun, spinning an elaborate backstory for Nuützen, complete with fabricated artistic accolades and church investigations for “visions unbecoming of a Christian artist.” Musk’s fake lore about paintings like The Flying Horse of Iron (depicting a locomotive centuries before its invention) and The Gathering of the Elect (a scene eerily resembling a modern stock exchange) was trolling on a master level. But while everyone else was laughing, Newsweek wasn’t in on the joke.
BROOOOO https://t.co/UOVKCZ8goI pic.twitter.com/HvQfbDZrdA
— bone (@boneGPT) November 19, 2024
Instead, they published a straight-faced article addressing the claim, missing the punchline entirely. As of this writing, the piece hasn’t been pulled from their site, cementing its place in the Hall of Fame for Media Faceplants.
To be fair, you almost have to feel bad for the poor fact-checker tasked with writing this. It’s not like they had a choice—when the editor says, “We need 500 words on this,” you get typing, even if it’s embarrassing. But seriously, who approved this in the first place?
😂
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 18, 2024
The whole fiasco is a masterclass in failing to read the room. It’s a reminder that not everything on the internet needs to be debunked, especially when it’s clearly designed to make people chuckle. The fact-check only amplified the joke, turning what should have been a momentary laugh into a viral embarrassment for Newsweek.
