On April 30, Twitter account @PoeBase shared a video two women fighting entertainment and gossip Twitter account Pop Base shared a video of two women fighting. The video, which contained a large TMZ watermark, was shared with the tweet "TMZ share muted video of Latto and Coi Leray fighting at Something In The Water Festival." The account has been designed to parody the popular gossip account Pop Base.
The footage was not from TMZ or Something In The Water. Instead, the user behind @PoeBase had taken footage from wrestling promotion TNA Impact Wrestling, muted it, and added the TMZ watermark. The clip has quickly gone viral since being posted at 3:30am EDT. At the time of writing, it has garnered over 1 million views, nearly 6,000 likes, nearly 600 retweets, and over 700 quote tweets.
Part of the reason the footage has gone viral is that a number of people genuinely believe, or believed, that is real. The account is designed to mimic Pop Base as closely as Twitter allows. This air of credibility has helped fuel the tweet's spread. The responses fall into three main categories - people who believe it's real, people who get the joke, and people legitimately annoyed at what they think is the real Pop Base account. Furthermore, it's just believable enough to be true, given the recent beef between Leray and Latto.
"Blocked because why are you spreading misinformation? It’s giving desperate" reads one reply. "This misinformation is strong with this one. Might have to block" reads another, who follows up with a link to their Spotify song "Go To Bed". However, as mentioned, there are plenty of people who believe this is genuine footage. "I knew something was going to pop up off....." reads one quote tweet. "Why is my coi fighting" reads another before tagging the actual Coi Leray. With Twitter moderation a mess, it's easier than ever to pass off fake bullshit as the real deal on the internet. The tweet quickly received a pending Community Note to help fight the misinformation.
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