When will Internet hoaxing stop? Why are people so willing to propogate this kind of silliness? Oh yeah, because folks like me will link to it.

Ok, here’s the deal. A dude named “Del”, purportedly an American college student from the Midwest, is offering $100k for the return of a tape and “tooth” taken from him at Loch Ness. The “tooth” was recoverd from the half-carcass of a deer found at the water’s edge. The perpetrator of the violence was “Nessy” and the theft of the film/”tooth” is attributed to an unseen “water bailiff”. You can see the “evidence” for yourself at lochnesstooth.com or Loch Movie.

Enough with the liberal quoting, this whole thing is bunk, bunk, bunk.

The fine folks at MeFi are having a field day with the account as are the Museum of Hoaxes crowd. Give it a week and Snopes will be piling on as well.

Things like this “Blair Ness Project” just prove that the internet is a ready medium for the quick dissemination of any content – good, bad, truthful, lying, artful, tacky and everything else in between. My advice to the jackasses who wrought this mess would be the same as many others: grainier photos, shakier camera, less script and a worse website.

We want to believe, but only if we have to work a little bit to fill in the gaps. A slow drip is much more viral than a deluge.

Just my two cents.