Rumors are strange and powerful things. They generate an emotional response, which then fuels passing the experience on to others.
Which is why rumors will spread faster than the truth.
Rumors are wildly interesting. Truth is boring.
Rumors are wildfires. Truth is glowing coals in a hearth.
So, when news spread about a young man on drugs who ate his eyeball at We Fest, accompanied by a 8-second video of someone appearing to have a bloody face and a seemingly missing eye, the story spread quickly through social media.
The alleged video is here.
But it turned out to be a rumor. No reports of someone with an eye injury at WE Fest.
And the video? An out of context clip that, really, shows nothing.
No one knows where the video came from.
A search online shows it was posted online a week before WE Fest, which effectively kills the Wev Fest rumor.
Another search reveals there are numerous stories online involving people eating supposedly eating or destroying their eyeballs:
- In 2004 and 2008, a Texas inmate on death row plucked out one eye and then the other, allegedly eating one of them.
- In February 2018, a South Carolina girl on meth gouged out both her eyeballs.
- In Australia and Great Britain, there are numerous stories of people on drugs gouging out their eyes and, in some cases, eating them
However, in the end, this particular rumor fizzles out and the video is probably from someone who either suffered a facial injury unrelated to the rumor or someone faked the brief video clip.
