Practical jokes on the Internet

[jducoeur]

Y'know, there's a worthwhile sociological experiment to be done: spread the word that Nigeria doesn't really exist -- it's just a hoax invented for the purpose of fake Internet rumors. Anything you hear about Nigeria is, by definition, false.

The Net is just primed for this. I bet a fair number of people would believe it...

Comments

[rufinia.livejournal.com]

Ooooooo

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

Of course it doesn't exist. I've never seen it. Same for all of Africa.

And your bathroom downstairs.

[hungrytiger]

An African country whose name is an obvious play on a racial slur was clearly just invented for bad net humor.

[dsrtao]

OK.

Hee!

[pamelina.livejournal.com]

The funny thing is, your message about imaginary Nigeria came out just above this message of Justin's on my friends list. :-) I'm looking forward to the results with an equal measure of dread and fascination.

I really hope it doesn't work... But with Obama being a muslim and having that awful anti-white preacher, too... I have a feeling it might.

Thing is, it would take large groups of ignorant people for this idea to spread, because anybody who knows is going to want to set their friends straight.

[runolfr.livejournal.com]

So the reason there's no oil coming from Nigeria is that there is no Nigeria... interesting. But where was the oil supposedly coming from Nigeria before *really* coming from?

[fitzw.livejournal.com]

You see, that's just it: Any information that oil ever came out of this "Nigeria" place was planted evidence.

[baron-steffan.livejournal.com]

Too easy: Ruritania, Kafiristan, and the drilling platforms off the northern coast of Chad.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Oh, c'mon. Tell me this -- when did you first hear that there ever WAS oil from "Nigeria"? Or did you only hear about it after there "wasn't oil coming from Nigeria any more?" Think about it.

[gyzki.livejournal.com]

Yah. They obviously just took the real country of Niger and stuck -ia onto the end to make a plausible-sounding placename. How transparent.

[hfcougar.livejournal.com]

Nigeria: It's the new rick-roll.

[laurion]

So if anything I hear about it is false, so is this post?

How am I to spread word that something doesn't exist if it doesn't exist? I'll have to invent Nigeria just to say it doesn't exist. Hmm. That's a little too close to some theological dogmas.

[dryfoo.livejournal.com]

You know, it's funny you should mention this. After Britain ceded independence to her colonies in that region, around 1960, there was actually a unification movement that advocated for a federal nation to be called "Nigeria". It was supposed to include Northern Cameroon, Biafra, South Niger, the Yoruba Free State, and Lagos-Benin.

Internal squabbling between the three major political parties -- the Nigerian People's Congress, National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons, and the Action Group -- scuttled the idea. A series of conflicts (the Lagos Delta war, the Biafran insurgency, etc etc etc) discredited all of the pro-unification advocates, and by 1963 the modern borders were pretty much set.

There's still a small pro-unity political group in the region, called the "419s" (named for the UN Security Council Resolution 419, which was to have recognized a "Greater Nigeria") but they have been plagued by corruption in their ranks, and don't have much credibility.

The idea is one of history's interesting might-have-beens.