Image via Fox 2 Detroit/YouTube
Someone spotted a giraffe in the bed of a pickup truck in Macomb County, Michigan, snapping a photo and uploading it to Facebook. The post quickly went viral as people debated whether the photo, let alone the giraffe in it, was real. This is the current state of social media and we fear society as well.
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Before too long, some media outlets were even weighing in, some speculating it wasn’t what it appeared to be. Because the giraffe was in a weird position in the back of the Ford F-150 and wasn’t moving, part of the debate focused on if it was dead or fake.
But local station Fox 2 Detroit tracked down the man who was driving the truck and got to the bottom of the controversial topic.
It turns out the guy who was transporting the giraffe is a taxidermist and he had to move the real taxidermized animal for a client. The giraffe died in a zoo of natural causes, so he was hired to memorialize it, with his work headed to a display in a museum.
That’s why the giraffe looked so real but was laying down in an odd position, not moving.
Considering how good modern photo editing software has become, combined with some people’s quest to do anything to go viral on social media, we can see why people would be skeptical of the original Facebook post.
We have to be careful ourselves about what we believe from social media posts. Thankfully, some journalists in the area did some good gumshoe detective work, tracking down the driver of the pickup truck and verifying that what everyone saw was real, getting the rest of the story.
Remember this the next time you see something bizarre on the road, take a photo, and upload it to social media.
Image via Fox 2 Detroit/YouTube
