Hurricane Sandy: Fake Pictures, Memes, Social Media Reaction

By Alyssa Newcomb
@alyssanewcomb
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Hurricane Sandy is a massive, deadly storm that has already taken dozens of lives in the Caribbean.  But northeasterners tucked away in their homes waiting for the storm to hit have been lighting up Twitter and Facebook with everything from Sandy humor and fake images to their first real glimpses of the storm.

Hurricane Sandy: Full Coverage

As of 5:00 p.m. EST, there had been over 7.1 million tweets in the past 24 hours about the storm. And that was before it made landfall. According to The New York Times, 10 photos a second are being uploaded of the storm to the popular photo sharing site, Instagram.

Fake Pictures 

But while some of the images are real, a number of the ones circulating the web are fake images have also swirled around social networks. Below are five images, which ABC confirmed to be not real. 

This one, showing an ominous New York City skyline, led to a lot of confusion as many shared it saying it was real.

             Image Credit: Charles Menjivar via Buzzfeed

Don’t worry about Ronald and the Big Macs. This was from a 2009 film called “Flooded McDonald’s.” 

Image credit: Vimeo

The one below is a real Getty stock image; it’s just from 2009.

Image credit: istwitterwrong

According to Mashable, the image below is the wallpaper from the film “The Day After Tomorrow.”

Image credit: The Day After Tomorrow

Watch out for fake sharks. Another shark image, posted on Mashable, has also been making the rounds.

Image credit: Gregory Michael / Facebook

Noteworthy Tweets  

One of the most shared tweets came from Lindsay Lohan, who questioned all of the Sandy hoopla.

“WHY is everyone in SUCH a panic about hurricane (i’m calling it Sally)..?” she tweeted Sunday night. “Stop projecting negativity! Think positive and pray for peace”

Sandy also inspired some new Twitter handles, such as @RomneyStormTips, which had more than 36,000 followers as of this morning.

                                                           (Image Credit: @RomneyStormTips/Twitter)

Comedian Andy Borowitz pontificated on the what would happen if Sandy caused a Twitter outage.

                                                                       (Image Credit: @BorowitzReport/Twitter)

When confronted with doom and gloom, some people have chosen to have a little fun with Sandy. The most popular memes included Frankenstein and a satellite image of Sandy. The perfect couple have led to Sandy being called a “Frankenstorm.” Arguably the most famous Sandy until the storm– Sandy from Grease– was also making a resurgence.

Hurricane Sandy: Live Storm Tracker