Hoax

The English philologist Robert Nares (1753–1829) says that the word hoax was coined in the late 18th century as a contraction of the verb hocus, which means "to cheat", "to impose upon"[3] or (according to Merriam-Webster) "to befuddle often with drugged liquor.

[5][better source needed] Robert Nares defined the word hoax as meaning "to cheat", dating from Thomas Ady's 1656 book A candle in the dark, or a treatise on the nature of witches and witchcraft.

[10] One of the earliest recorded media hoaxes is a fake almanac published by Jonathan Swift under the pseudonym of Isaac Bickerstaff in 1708.

A hoax is often intended as a practical joke or to cause embarrassment, or to provoke social or political change by raising people's awareness of something.

For example, to market a romantic comedy film, a director staged a phony "incident" during a supposed wedding, which showed a bride and preacher getting knocked into a pool by a clumsy fall from a best man.

[12] A resulting video clip of Chloe and Keith's Wedding was uploaded to YouTube and was viewed by over 30 million people and the couple was interviewed by numerous talk shows.

[21] Hoax may serve the goal of propaganda or disinformation – using social media to drive web traffic and amplify their effect.

[25][23] Hoax news is usually released with the intention of misleading to injure an organisation, individual, or person, and/or benefit financially or politically, sometimes utilising sensationalist, deceptive, or simply invented headlines to maximise readership.