A man who tricked TripAdvisor into making his fake restaurant the top-rated destination in London has struck again, after successfully sending fake versions of himself to appear on TV and radio stations around the world.
Vice writer Oobah Butler sent stand-ins to take part in interviews about his original fraud on BBC Radio 2, local radio stations, international documentaries and one of the most popular TV shows in Australia.
In one incident a Norwegian man successfully pretended to be the West Midlands-born Butler at a journalism awards ceremony, collecting a prize and conducting an interview with a prominent Norwegian accent. The interview was then uploaded to the YouTube channel of industry magazine the Drum, who organised the ceremony.
One volunteer was successfully dispatched to take part in a 10-minute interview with Vanessa Feltz on BBC Radio 2, when she was standing in for Jeremy Vine on his lunchtime BBC show.
Butler also sent his brother, dressed in dungarees, to appear on the Australian breakfast TV show Sunrise, one of the most popular programmes in the country.
Viewers raised doubts about his appearance but after the broadcast Butler was able to convince the programme makers that it was him. Video showing Butler before an interview with his brother is still on the Sunrise Twitter account.
Oobah Butler faked his way into Paris Fashion Week with knockoff jeans. How did he do it?! pic.twitter.com/wIVOavnp7e
— Sunrise (@sunriseon7) June 30, 2018
The writer admitted to the ruse after being approached by the Guardian. He said he had become bored with doing media appearances after he managed to create a fake high-end restaurant, the Shed at Dulwich, and turn it into an in-demand destination by asking friends to write fake reviews.
“It’s a byproduct of doing so many interviews all over the world,” said Butler, who will release a video with Vice detailing his latest scam. “They all asked me the exact same questions. I’m not famous: what I did is famous and it was interesting to remove me from that process.
“I found it so interesting that it didn’t matter that it was Brazil’s biggest show or Japan TV doing an hour-long documentary. It could be any of us. It’s not an indictment of the press, it’s just interesting to see whether this is doable.”
He said he was surprised by how easy it was to get a stand-in through BBC security and on the country’s biggest radio stations. Butler said: “Yes, you can get into Wogan House [the Radio 2 headquarters] if you’ve got a vaguely similar-looking hair colour.”
He said people regularly maintained multiple different online identities on various social media platforms and this showed it could be possible in real life: “If I can convince everyone that I’m a Norwegian six-foot actor then quite literally anyone can be whatever they want, because I’m a moron.”
