The Back To The Future Hoax

I know, I’m adding to all the mess of bandwagon-jumping today, but Buzzfeed’s article on the man who told the internet that Back To The Future Part 2 was July 5 2010… and the internet believed him.

Being first to a juicy factoid like Future Day could result in a big tweet, and that meant new followers, new readers. Without resources, scoops at Total Film were rare, and we often had to rely on bigger publications to source news.

I could have googled. I should have googled. But being first was more important. Sometimes when a mad professor turns up with a time machine strapped to a sports car you forgo the questions and just get in.
Just after 11am on 5 July 2010, I unleashed precisely 140 characters of ignorance on the internet, among them a seemingly innocuous 10-character hashtag: #futureday.

With one boom-sounding click of a mouse, the future was history.