Hippo Eats Dwarf: A Field Guide to Hoaxes and Other B.S.
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0156030837
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
Average Customer Review: 
(From 31 total reviews)
List Price: $14.00
Amazon Price: $1.07 (41 new 38 used available)
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Editorial Reviews
Product Description:
Can you grow a bonsai kitten? Should you stock up on dehydrated water? Is it easy to order human-flavored tofu? Or is this all just B.S.?
In a world of lip synching, breast implants, payola punditry, and staged reality shows, it’s hard to know the real from the fake. Hippo Eats Dwarf is the essential field guide to today’s Misinformation Age. Whether you’re deciphering political doublespeak or trying to decide whether to forward that virus warning, hoaxpert Alex Boese provides the guidelines you need. For instance, Reality Rule 6.1: Just because you read it on the Internet doesn’t make it true.
With case files, reality checks, definitions, and plenty of doctored photos, Hippo Eats Dwarf is an entertaining guide to life, death, eBay, and everything in between.
Customer Reviews
Grat book by Richard B. Marion
Absolutely loved this book and how it uncovers hoaxes. Very well written but not so overly wordy or intellectual as to sound snobbish.
A fascinatating read by Wayne Redhart
Covering such diverse topics as the Turin Shroud and the ‘death’ of Elvis Presley, this is an extremely witty and informative guide to notorious hoaxes. It never fails to go into detail and often comes out with little-known facts. I had never before realised that the publication of Alan Sokal’s spoof scientific-paper constituted treason, or that he was jailed for seven years (a portion of the sentence having been served in Al Capone’s former cell at Alcatraz). Similarly, it was a shock to learn that John Major is a dedicated crop-circle maker, who regularly rose before 3am to create arable-mischief: while serving as Prime Minister! Amazon users may be interested to note the inclusion of Amazon.com’s top 500 reviewer Henry Raddick, whose many spoof reviews are well-known across the internet. Boese spends a little time exploring the psychology of hoaxers but, despite his best efforts, he is unable to come up with an answer to the biggest question: What actually motivates these morally-bankrupt buffoons to waste everybody’s time on such vapid, unfunny pranks?
And you thought hippos were vegetarians by Dennis Littrell
I was a little grossed out by the fake pregnancies, the male pregnancies, the male lactation and the disgusting plastic surgery and anorexia in the first two chapters, but after that the book got good. Surprisingly good. Alex Boese’s formula includes a lot of information and misinformation, and gives you the reader in some cases the opportunity to guess which is which. For example, did a circus dwarf fall into the mouth of a yawning hippo, triggering the hippo’s swallowing reflex?
How about Snowball, that 87-pound cat you’ve probably seen pictures of. Real? Or the bonsai kittens in a bottle?
Just to prove this is NOT a fake Amazon review written by the author in disguise (see page 112), I am going to reveal the answers (sorry Alex): no, no, and no. Well, you knew that. But if you’ve seen the hippo nature special on PBS you know that hippos will on occasion join the crocs and the lions at the kill.
Aside from the many hoaxes and the you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me’s, and various other wtf’s, what Boese does so well in this book is entertain in a way that makes you think. What I was thinking was can we believe anything anymore? I mean almost any photo can be faked and photoshopped. Politicians steal elections and invent phony reasons for wars as massive Halliburton welfare projects, etc. And the media doesn’t know veracity from its elbow. And it’s getting so nobody really cares anymore. Boese is documenting this and calling it to our attention.
His main source is the Web in all its quirky, bogus, hoaxy and fun-loving glory. But hold on, Virginia. One would think after all these years that somebody would be getting a clue that–quoting Boese’s “Reality Rule 6.1″: “Just because you read it on the Internet doesn’t mean it’s true.” Take the strange case of “The Gullible Professor” (p. 125). Weldong Xu of Harvard University (Bush’s grad school, don’t you know) “received an e-mail informing him of a business proposal that would transfer $50 million into his bank account…The only catch was the usual ‘unforeseen expenses,’ numbering hundreds of thousands of dollars. He raised $600,000 from friends and colleagues, telling them he was collecting money to fund SARS research in China… [E]ven after he was arrested, Xu continued to insist that his friends overseas were going to send him $50 million.”
Judging from my email, the Nigerian scam is small potatoes compared to the lottery scam. I get several “Congratulations you have won!!!!” for every “I am Rwanda Ugamba…reply urgently my secretary.” Just for the heck of it I added up how much I had won in just one 24-hour period: $32.7 million. And I do this every day.
Then there are the “Internet-Crossed Lovers” who, assuming new identities, joined an online chat room for singles. Lo and behold when they arrived at their pre-arranged rendevous, it turned out that they were none other than each other’s spouse! Shades of the “Pina Colada Song,” God help us.
One of the funniest bits is Boese’s report of “The New ‘Honor System’ Virus.” You get an email that reads: “This virus works on the honor system. Please forward this message to everyone you know, then delete all the files on your hard drive. Thank you for your cooperation.” (p. 123)
There’s a lot of comical stuff about George W. and the Bush administration and all of its mendacities and misinformations and outright b.s., and some golden oldies from the Clinton years as well, some of it true and some of it not so true. But here’s a big time reality check for you: Boese gives various definitions of neologisms throughout the book such as this one:
“Money Party, n.: The monolithic political party rumored to govern the United States. Said to camouflage its monopoly on power by periodically hiring new actors to serve as presidents, senators, and congressmen.” (p. 241)
In his naivete, Boese thinks he’s joking around. Actually there IS only one political party in the US with two branches, the Republican and the Democratic, and they do indeed send in a new cast every few years.
This is a “fun” book obviously with lots of photos (touched up and not) and other art work. The text appears in brown, green and white on green and brown and sometimes white, but it’s not distracting. I would rate this as just a clever bon-bon book except for the fact that Boese really does come up with some startling juxtapositions between reality and unreality, and because the unavoidable message that will hit the reader is a profound one. I would call that message, “Reality, what a concept!” (From Robin Williams, some years ago, when he was still doing TV’s “Mork and Mindy.”)
One final warning: pictured on page 139 is a “DVD Rewinder.” Regardless of how much it is marked down, don’t buy it.
An entertaining and informative look at the reality, hoaxes, and b.s. in the “Misinformation Age”. by Craig Maloney
It’s no surprise to most people that the Internet is chock-full of misinformation, half-truths, and self-perpetuating myths. I’m sure you have received an e-mail from someone about some strange photo, story, or plea with the claim “this is true!”. Invariably, though, these mails turn out to be unworthy of the pixels they’re displayed upon, with leaps of logic or some other rudimentary clue which could have easily been researched on Snopes or Wikipedia. Unfortunately, a quick scroll through the list of the previous recipients of these mails tell the tale of long lists of people who are ready to perpetuate the myths they’ve been sold as fact. It seems the Internet has become a fertile ground, much like television and other media, for hoaxes to flourish unchallenged. Hippo Eats Dwarf is a great tune-up for your inner B.S. detector, and a hilarious look between the blatantly ridiculous, and the surprisingly true.
Hippo Eats Dwarf bills itself as “A Field Guide to Hoaxes and other B.S.”. Indeed, it reads like a tour guide through some of the more bizarre corners of Each section contains various “Reality Rules”, where the author informs the reader of various immutable truths, such as “No one in Hollywood has their original body parts”, and “There’s nothing like the promise of future wealth to separate a person from his sanity”. Also included are definitions of terms you might not have heard of before, like “Dead Cat Bounce”, and “VCNC” (Vast Cable News Conspiracy). Each of these “Reality Rules” are interspersed between the various stories, and add to the already humorous content of the book.
Most of the book, however, is a museum of the various curiosities that have spread through the Internet. Hippo Eats Dwarf consists of 14 chapters covering birth, death and practically everything in between. The chapters are Birth, Bodies, Romance, Food, Photography, The World Wide Web, E-mail, eBay, Technology, The News, Entertainment, Advertising, Business, Politics, War, and Death. Each chapter contains lots of these strange stories, anecdotes, and occasional pictures of the subject matter. The book is well paced, and very entertaining. Much of the material may be familiar to you, but I’ll bet that unless you’ve actively sought out the bizarre and weird, there’s at least something in this book you haven’t heard of before. Lest I give you the impression that this book only covers Internet oddities, there’s also ample coverage of other hoaxes that almost made the news, such as the faked JFK / Marilyn Monroe love letters (which ABC paid handsomely to obtain, only to realize that the typewriter which typed them hadn’t been manufactured. Plus, the letters had Zip Codes, which weren’t used until after JFK’s death). Among the technology bits are some hoaxes (the Rand computer photo), some legitimate products (the DVD rewinder), and some products we’d like to see someday (iLoo, anyone?).
Hippo Eats Dwarf is a very easy-reading book. The topics are the right fodder for anyone mildly curious about the realms of the strange and fictitious. I found myself just turning the pages looking for the next ridiculous story. The stories are engaging, and the author gives each the right mix of reporting and commentary. I’d highly recommend giving this book to the next person who forwards you a 15 page chain letter (don’t break the chain!), or the office co-worker who photocopies a photograph of a 100lb cat to post into the break-room. Hippo Eats Dwarf may not stop them from propagating this stuff, but at least you’ll be secure in the knowledge that you tried.
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