This letter claims there's a Coronavirus outbreak. It's fake.

Tell your relatives to stop spreading bullshit on Facebook.



Today in Coronavirus-related racism: a fake letter, purporting to be from an official with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, has been circulating on email and Facebook regarding a supposed Coronavirus outbreak in the South Bay region of Southern California. This is 100% not real.

Letter Claiming Coronavirus Outbreak in Carson is Fake, Officials Say

According to officials, there is no current threat to public health from the Coronavirus in Los Angeles County. But of course, this bullshit hoax letter names actual Asian-owned restaurants and markets in the Carson/Torrance area (including their addresses), declaring them "contaminated.

The Real Yi-Fen Chou is Not Okay with Your Fake Poetry Name

Poet Michael Derrick Hudson went to the same high school as Yi-Fen Chou in Fort Wayne, Indiana.



So now we all know about the pseudonymic deception of white guy poet Michael Derrick Hudson, who couldn't get his work published under his own regular-ass name, so he used a Chinese pen name, "Yi-Fen Chou," and got a poem placed in the prestigious Best American Poems anthology. Controversy ensues.

Now it turns out that fake Chinese name was borrowed from a real person -- who is not okay with it.

Family Protests White Poet's Use of Chinese Pen Name

It looks like Michael Derrick Hudson didn't just make up his now-infamous wong de plume out of thin air. The family of a woman actually named Yi-Fen Chou, who apparently attended the same high school as Hudson in Fort Wayne, Indiana, has stepped forward, demanding that he cease using the name immediately.

Sorry, that Maroon 5 music video is fake.

Turns out, the band did not crash anybody's wedding. Those weren't even real weddings.



A few folks have been sending me this latest music video by Maroon 5, in which the band claims to spend a Saturday in Los Angeles crashing multiple wedding receptions and surprising newlyweds with an impromptu performance. One of the couples is an Asian American bride and groom. It's cute. It's also all lies.

Maroon 5's Smarmy Wedding-Crashing Video Was Totally Staged

Apologies to all who really enjoyed the OMG-there-are-rock-stars-at-my-wedding spirit of it all, but the whole thing was apparently staged. The deception started to unravel when folks began recognizing a handful of people in the video as actors (including a former America's Next Top Model contestant) and perhaps not totally random, regular ol' wedding revelers caught in a candid moment.

In the case of the Asian American wedding, the actors who were cast as "parents of the Asian bride" -- real-life couple Stephen and Barbara Woo -- let the cat out of the bag on their Facebook page, confirming that everything was indeed staged (and no doubt, bursting a few bubbles).