What's that? Can you hear it? It's the sound of people being angry on Facebook again! This time, it's over a story from something called the Rochdale Herald, announcing that the city of London will rename Big Ben as "Massive Mohammed" in 2018.
The story, published on Tuesday, claims the iconic clock tower will be renamed to reflect London's "growing diversity."
It will even ring calls to Muslim prayers, according to the Rochdale Herald story, which said there will be a push to rename other landmarks as well.
“Renaming the London Eye the ‘London Third Eye’ has been popular with Hindus and Buddhists, and we’re currently trying to persuade London Zoo to make its collection more kosher-friendly for the sake of its Jewish visitors. We did suggest changing Blackfriars to ‘Friars of Colour’ but many people thought that that was just a bridge too far,” the Rochdale Herald quoted a "project manager" as saying.
If you haven't figured it out yet, this story is a piece of satire from a fake newspaper. In fact, the Rochdale Herald states it is fake news pretty clearly on its "about us" page.
"The Rochdale Herald is a satirical, spoof, parody commentary on current affairs, and stuff that annoys and amuses us. We make it up and it’s not intended, in any way whatsoever, to be considered factual," it states. "If you read a story on The Rochdale Herald, please take a deep breath before going off the deep end as we probably made it up..."
However, these little facts did not stop the article from being spread around Facebook, and PISSING PEOPLE OFF.
They were very mad!
Protect heritage!
Pure disgusting!
"Why is out [sic] heritage being whittled away just too [sic] make immigrants feel better."
There will be an uproar!
"Not being funny but this will cause civil war!!"
We are outta here.
Some people who got the joke noticed the freakout, and since Twitter loves to rag on Facebook, they immediately began roasting the outrage with some hilarious tweets.
They were totally losing it.
Whoever started the Big Ben being renamed Massive Mohammed is fucking hilarious 😂😂😂
And some were ashamed of their Facebook friends.
i've seen the massive mohammed story on facebook now and i'm ashamed to even have friends on there who believe it and are angry looool
Others were petitioning for it to actually happen — if just for laughs.
It does have a ring to it...
Massive Mohammed has more of a ring to it
Someone actually started a petition.
I AM CRYING THERES ACTUALLY A PETITION TO CHANGE BIG BEN TO "MASSIVE MOHAMMED" https://t.co/z9InetFdmr
There were also less formal ~polls.~
Big Ben vs Massive Mohammed who wins you decide
So just so we are clear, nothing is being renamed...for now. Please and thank you.
