User:Speculations319/sandbox

Paul Horner
Paul Horner is a 35-year-old internet news satirist and article writer for numerous online satirical news sites. He is the founder of Super Official News, and a writer for Conservative Frontline and The National Report. Horner frequently uses his name for fictional characters in his many articles.

Personal Life
Paul Horner was born on November 5, 1978 in Apple Valley, Minnesota. He attended High School in Apple Valley Senior High School, then moved to Phoenix, Arizona and attended Tolleson Union High School. He is a graduate of the Art Institute of Phoenix, with a degree in Website Design and Administration. Paul is currently single and lives in Phoenix, Arizona.

Career
Paul realized his love of writing hoax articles in April 2012 when he wrote an article about a fictional wealthy man named Paul Horner winning the Maryland $640 million Mega Millions. (He has written two similar articles since then about various characters named Paul Horner winning the lottery.) This caused him to found “Super Official News” in 2012. Under the "Secrets" section of the website, Horner includes a letter on his hoaxing technique. Horner is also a contributing writer to the satirical news sites “Conservative Frontline” and “The National Report.” He goes by “Ken Harris” in many of his articles for Conservative Frontline, while going by “Darius Rubics” for his National Report articles.

Aliases
Jimmy Rustling

Jimmy Rustling is a fictional writer for Super Official News. His biography on the Super Official News website reads, “Journalist for over fifty years with various publications. I’ve won many awards including three Pulitzers back in 2007 & 2009 along with numerous other awards, as you can see on my awards page. Don’t hate.” There is heavy evidence that Horner's Reddit username for Jimmy Rustling is /u/jimmyrustling69.

Ken Harris

Ken Harris is a fictional writer for Conservative Frontline, “Providing you with the hard hitting news the left doesn’t want you to know.” Many articles posted by Ken Harris are also found on Horner’s Facebook page, or are posted by Jimmy Rustling on Super Official News.

Darius Rubics

Darius Rubics is a fictional writer for The National Report. According to his profile, “Dr. Rubics has won numerous awards for journalism including a Peabody Award and a Pulitzer Prize. When he isn’t spending time with his beautiful wife of fifteen years or playing catch with his two amazing sons, you can find Darius working to solve world hunger.” This is a link to a complete list of Horner's articles for The National Report, under the alias of Darius Rubics.

Fappy the Anti-Masturbation Dolphin

Fappy is the mascot of "STOP Masturbation NOW," a fictional Christian organization discouraging masturbation (or “self-rape,” as they frequently call it.) Fappy allegedly visits schools across the country preaching against the “harm of self-rape.” According to this fictional article, Fappy was also arrested for public masturbation in March 2013. Fappy works in close proximity with “Lonnie Childs,” the fictional founder of the “STOP Masturbation NOW” movement. On his Facebook page, Fappy cites the number of the Westboro Baptist Church as his contact information. Fappy held a Reddit AMA (link to AMA) on July 13, 2014, under the username /u/PraiseFappy.

Goals
Horner is a self-proclaimed “activist,” and shows as much with some of his articles. Under an article about the "Assam Rape Festival," and several follow-up articles, he includes a large link to donate to Giveindia.org, as well as a petition to bring rape to the attention of India’s prime minister. India is estimated to have one of the highest rape rates in the world, with one of the lowest reporting/convicting rates. The “Rape Festival” hotline in the articles is also the phone number of the Westboro Baptist Church, in a self-proclaimed move by Horner to tie up their phone lines. When asked, in a 2013 interview, what was most important to him with his activism, he answered, “Just good versus evil type stuff. When I see something wrong, if I can do something to point it out and exaggerate it. . . my favorite writer is Hunter S. Thompson. He said, ‘I have no taste for either poverty or honest labor, so writing is the only recourse left for me.’ I dig all that. The freedom to go out and just call BS on people.”

Controversy
One of Horner’s most famous articles, frequently, and mistakenly, taken as truth, was his article about a man named Paul Horner stopping a robbery by quoting Pulp Fiction. On February 22, 2013, and again on October 20, 2014, Paul William Horner was, falsely, revealed as the true identity of Banksy, in articles written by aliases of Horner. In the 2014 instance, the article was shared, in different incarnations, over 650,000 times. An article about the town of DeQuincy, Louisiana banning twerking was met with statements from the mayor of DeQuincy having to denounce such statements, and citizens threatening to cut Horner’s balls off. Horner wrote another article about DeQuincy in June 2012, met with death threats and numerous Facebook shares. The article focused on an uprising of people turned into gay zombies by bath salts. The “Louisiana Zombie Hotline” listed on the website is actually the Westboro Baptist Church’s phone number. He wrote an article about twerking being banned in the town to get back at them for their death threats, stating in an interview, “The nice town of DeQuincy threatened to kill me, cut my balls off, have me arrested, kick my ass, do harm to my family etc. etc. etc. After today’s twerking hoax, I’m satisfied. I’m happy. I think we’re even. If they threaten my life again or my family, there will be more stories, lots of them.” In December 2013 he wrote an article about a man named Paul Horner marrying his dog in California, a satire of anti-gay marriage arguments, and was subsequently invited onto a TV show focusing on “weird relationships.” Also in 2013, his article about President Obama opening a Muslim museum in the midst of the government shutdown was picked up by Fox News as fact. Horner made a statement on the matter later, saying, “Is National Report the fake news site, or Fox News? You decide.”

Horner has said about his work, “It’s not really satire, it’s just a story. . . you know, just those ridiculous stories you share on Facebook.” Super Official News has a bolded statement at the bottom of the news page reading “Disclaimer: This entire site is pretty much just a resume containing a collection of my writings and for the off chance that someone like The Onion or The Daily Show ever happens to stop by. Until then just remember, if it’s on the internet is must be true.” Some claim that his work is despicable, and one involved in the media should not attempt to fool people into believing mistruths. The National Report, where Horner is a lead writer, has been accused of straddling “the line between legitimate satire and shameless hoaxing.” However, his work has been hailed by writers as “fantastically absurd,” and “actually hilarious.” He also clarifies to an interviewer, “What’s really important is I don’t ever do anything negative. There’s a lot of people who do death hoaxes and stuff like that. My stuff – it’s all stuff I wish would actually happen.”

Future Plans
Paul Horner has stated in a 2013 interview that he is planning a book of his twenty best hoaxes, to be released through a deal with Amazon, called “Twenty Slow News Days: 20 Hoaxes That Trolled The Internet And How I Did It.” As of late 2014, no mention of such book can be found on Amazon.com.