A 22-Year-Old Tricked Media Into Believing He Mortgaged Parents' House To Gamble On GameStop

22-year-old prankster Jack West reminded everyone that not everything posted on social media is to be believed as he tricked both the New York Post and Fox News with a fabricated story, claiming to have taken out a mortgage on his parents house to buy GameStop shares.

On Wednesday January 27th, Jack West tweeted that he secretly took a second mortgage on his parents' house in order to by shares of GameStop and AMC Theatres, companies that have been lately benefiting immensely of" monstrous stock surges":https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/gamestop-stock-surge prompted by the activity of retail traders in /r/WallStreetBets subreddit.

just took out a second mortgage on my parent’s house while they were at work to buy more $AMC and $GME LETS GOOOO

— Jack (@JackoWest_3) January 27, 2021

And while the tweet did not get significant attention from users, it caught the eye of a real estate reporter for New York Post, who reached to Jack for an interview via a direct message. The next day, an article about a 22-year-old trader who risked his parents' mortgage to buy $70,000 worth of GameStop shares was out both on the New York Post's website and its social media channels, going viral on Twitter with over 3,000 retweets and 20,000 likes in under three hours. In the hoax interview, West lied that he managed to secure the second mortgage on Monday via a Zoom call with his hometown bank, keeping the camera turned off.

Totally healthy, definitely normal, stock market behavior https://t.co/Qa7jmBwiY1

— Mr. Skilling (Parody) (@mr_skilling) January 28, 2021

The New York Post's reporting was quickly picked up by Fox News, who also posted an article about the bold young trader. However, as West came clean several hours later and boasted about his hoax, both articles were promptly deleted by both sites.

context since it was deleted pic.twitter.com/8Mxv8crJjj

— Jack (@JackoWest_3) January 29, 2021

a timeline of events pic.twitter.com/ZZbDquvLcM

— Jack (@JackoWest_3) January 28, 2021

And while the media got busy cleaning up, West has been clearly enjoying his five minutes of fame.

I’m on Barstool for lying to a reporter LMFAOOO

— Jack (@JackoWest_3) January 29, 2021

pic.twitter.com/qxcVa76QLd

— Jack (@JackoWest_3) January 29, 2021

Don’t believe everything you read on Twitter, part 373837352 pic.twitter.com/YdDn2yM44F

— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) January 29, 2021

Considering some of the posts that appeared during this week's craze over the surge in GameStop and other stocks, Jake West's made-up story doesn't sound too crazy to be fake.