Back To The Future 'hoax' - we confess!
Total Film 'Future Day' shenanigans cause Twitter chaos
BY Jul 6th 2010 16:16PMFILED UNDER: Movie news
User Comments (17)
Back To The Future is the film on everyone's lips, thanks to a Twitter sensation claiming that yesterday - 5th July 2010 - was 'Future Day', the day that Doc and Marty visit in Part 2.
The culprit responsible? None other than your favourite film magazine and website, Total Film. Yeah... sorry about that.
Here's the original tweet;
A casual office conversation brought up the 'fact' that 5th July 2010 is referenced in Back To The Future (though Doc and Marty never actually go there), so sensing a bit of fun for our Twitter feed (and without checking) we posted the Tweet. Then things got interesting.
As our 30,000 followers began retweeting the post it gathered pace, and die-hard BTTF fans began replying demanding an explanation for our grevious mistake.
For a bit of fun we photoshopped an image of the digital time display from the dashboard of the DeLorean to say '05 07 2010' (above) and loaded it onto twitpic;
You can see the original post here.
Underneath the picture we posted this;
What was meant as a tongue in cheek apology just stoked the fire massively and became a Twitter version of Chinese whispers.
The image ended up being used as proof that 5th July 2010 is mentioned in the movie, not proof that we were wrong.
By the afternoon Back To The Future became a trending topic on Twitter worldwide, and one of the most searched topics on Google in the past 24 hours.
The Guardian have blogged about it, two Australian newspapers have done stories, along with one in the Arab Emirates. One news story by World Correspondants referred to us as a 'Photoshop artist' - not too sure about that, but thanks all the same.
This morning tweets are circulating with a new image, photoshopped by a third party to say that today, July 6th 2010, is Future Day. There is now an email circulating with the same image;
As of the time of posting, Hollywood actors Elizabeth Banks and Colin Hanks have retweeted the post, as have Joe Jonas, Ivanka Trump and even the producer of all three Back To The Future movies, Frank Marshall - it looks like this one could run for a few more days folks...
And that's how we started Future Day, it truly is an accidental global phenomenon.
So apologies, film fans. We were wrong. It seems some lax research and average photoshop skills go a long way on Twitter these days.
Did you believe it? Did you call hoax? Leave a comment - then follow us on Twitter!
Print Comments (17)
2: JasonW says
Hang on, when was July 5th 2010 ever mentioned in Back to the Future?
The closest date to that would have been October 26th 2010 if Doc has been able to travel before the Libyans shot him.
Posted: Jul 6th 2010 // 1:49PMAlert a moderator
3: danlight says
Exsqueeze me for being quite the pedant, but the first instance of #backtothefuturemyth I remember seeing is this one - http://twitter.com/timworleylive/status/17714332128 - dated about twenty-four hours before your tweet. Am I missing something? Or have you guys been fooling around with your flux capacitor again?
Posted: Jul 6th 2010 // 2:30PMAlert a moderator
4: Benmorse says
You t***s. Colin Hanks is hardly a celebrity.
Posted: Jul 6th 2010 // 3:49PMAlert a moderator
5: brown727 says
I thought it originated with http://twitter.com/gavmccaughey/status/17698716970??
blogged about it here if anyone is interested: http://brown727.co.uk/back-to-the-future-day-fail/
Posted: Jul 6th 2010 // 3:53PMAlert a moderator
6: danlight says
Hang on a tick - July 3rd, when Gav tweeted, was the 25 year anniversary of the films original release date - as called out by Slashfilm on the day. *light slowly dawns*
Posted: Jul 6th 2010 // 4:25PMAlert a moderator
7: fabioyabu says
There's another one going on, can anyone confirm? http://twitpic.com/22y6l3
Posted: Jul 6th 2010 // 5:19PMAlert a moderator
8: dgoodswen says
See the bit above:
"A casual office conversation brought up the 'fact' that 5th July 2010 is referenced in Back To The Future"
There is every chance that this conversation was sparked by a tweet someone had seen, but since that person isn't here to ask, and never mentioned the tweet in the first place, I can't confirm whether it was based on those tweets.
Posted: Jul 6th 2010 // 5:29PMAlert a moderator
9: potniatheron says
I think it shows how important and influential Back to the Future remains to be as a movie. Impressive.
Posted: Jul 6th 2010 // 6:50PMAlert a moderator
10: Hadouken76 says
so we not gettin hoverboards then?
Posted: Jul 6th 2010 // 8:06PMAlert a moderator
11: luckygirllaura says
i thought when marty was in the car with doc an his girlfriend he says "we are going to the year 2014"?? so not only is the day a hoax but so is the year?!?!?!
Posted: Jul 7th 2010 // 1:11AMAlert a moderator
12: mrsmiawallace says
This makes me want to havr a Back to the Future marathon!!
Posted: Jul 7th 2010 // 7:10AMAlert a moderator
13: reddaze says
To quote Jennifer from BTTF2 - "so this is the year 2015??'
Not even the right year!!
Nice idea though.
Posted: Jul 7th 2010 // 9:57AMAlert a moderator
14: reddaze says
Just to reitierate the point - they travel 30 years back to 1955 then 30 years ahead (quote Doc BTTF1 final scene "30 years? nice round number) to 2015.
Posted: Jul 7th 2010 // 9:59AMAlert a moderator
15: unr1lt says
What a load of idiots. Do you guys have nothing better to do than spend hours on photoshop and put out hoaxs with the aim to get a little exposure for your failing site??
Posted: Jul 7th 2010 // 11:09AMAlert a moderator
16: dgoodswen says
It was two minutes on Photoshop - a cut and paste job. The site is doing really well :)
Posted: Jul 7th 2010 // 2:32PMAlert a moderator
17: alexr says
I wonder if we should ponder the 'meaning' behind the fact that, by pointing out the error and uncovering the photoshop stunt, Future Day has now moved "Back to the Future".....
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