Lollipop hoax, A recent video posted to YouTube purports to show a man in Singapore making lollipop sculptures using only his mouth.
But, as many have guessed, it’s too good to be true.
In the original video, posted March 27, a tourist sits down with “Uncle” to witness the making of the lollipop art. “Supposedly, this dude molds stuff, like, with a lollipop," he says. "Let’s see what he does. It’s been like 10 minutes now."
When Uncle removes the lollipop from his mouth, a miraculous thing seems to have occurred: It's intricately crafted to bear a striking resemblance to the tourist’s face.
The video quickly went viral and has so far been viewed more than 950,000 times.
But those who bothered to click the pop-up invite at the end of the video to see "the reveal" are taken to a second video, “Chupa Chups Street Artist Revealed.”
In it, a young woman posing as a reporter confronts Uncle about whether the face moldings are real. At first, it seems like a legitimate news clip. But with each successive camera cut from the reporter to the man, more and more Chupa Chups lollipops appear in the frame, eventually replacing the microphone itself.
So, it was yet another marketing gag by a company hoping to generate some buzz in social media circles. As we discussed in another recent Sideshow blog post, it’s part of a trend of companies pulling April Fools’ Day pranks on days other than April 1. In our book, that’s just making stuff up as opposed to a genuinely creative prank. But ultimately, the clip is harmless. And in its defense, Chupa Chups actually admitted to the hoax on its Facebook page on April 1.