'Holy crap': Ted Cruz falls for 'Hurricane Shark' prank 12 years after it was debunked

When Hurricane Irene slammed Puerto Rico in 2011, a fake image of a "shark" swimming on a flooded highway went viral.

"Hurricane Shark" was photoshopped; Irene did cause severe flooding in Puerto Rico, but a shark didn't really come inland from the ocean. Washington Post reporter Sarah Anne Hughes debunked "Hurricane Shark" as a hoax in an article published on August 26, 2011.

But "Hurricane Shark" has become a joke on the internet — one that Barstool Sports' Dan Katz, @BarstoolBigCat (a jokester on X, formerly Twitter) revived when Southern California was recently pounded by the remnants of Hurricane Hilary.

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Katz jokingly tweeted, "Friend of mine out in LA just took this picture on the 405," posting a fake image that depicted a shark swimming on a flooded L.A. freeway. And far-right Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), in response, tweeted, "Holy crap."

Rolling Stone's Nikki McCann Ramirez, in an article published on August 31, explains, "Cruz was rightfully ridiculed and later added that he had been 'told this is a joke. In LA, you never know'…. One would hope that after such an avoidable public slip-up, any sane person would learn that googling before posting can be a vital preventative skill. Not Ted Cruz."

Ramirez continues, "In his apparent view, things people say on the internet are entirely credible as long as they provide an avenue to swipe at one's political opponents."

Ramirez goes on cite other examples of Cruz promoting right-wing hoaxes online without bothering to vet the information.

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Read Rolling Stone's full article at this link (subscription required).