“The Efron Scandal” Gets Internet's Panties in a Bunch

By Dave Segal Tue., Dec. 18 2007 at 1:18 PM

Categories: The Efron Scandal

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Wayne and Zac: brothers from other mothers, fo' sheezy.

Have you read Ben Westhoff's “The Efron Scandal” feature yet in this week's OC Weekly? Dozens of thousands of 'net surfers have (enough—30,000 and counting—to crash our site, temporarily). Among those readers are those who work for very popular hip-hop magazine XXL, snarky pop-culture rag Radar, snarkier music blog Idolator, high-traffic rap blog nahright.com (can't find the link now, sorry), A Socialite's Life gossip spot, gossip queen supreme Perez Hilton (OMFG!!!! LMAO!!!) and many other sites. And some dim bulbs at British tabloid The Sun. The Internets are absolutely aflame with conjecture about the reality of “The Efron Scandal.” To my utter shock, many gullible mouth-breathers post comments to websites. Nurse, the smelling salts...

The Sun swallowed the satirical story [i.e., IT'S FABRICATED TO AN ABSURD DEGREE TO PROVOKE LAUGHTER, HAHA] without an iota of skepticism, and ran this tabloidy piece about adorable High School Musical co-star Vanessa Hudgens, alluding to Zac Efron's alleged extracurricular activities with Dirty South rapper Lil Wayne. Those nitwits couldn't even attribute our story properly, calling OC Weekly a “US magazine.” I can just imagine the Sun editor saying, “Oi, all those yank publications are the same, innit? Let's fuck off to the boozer, mate.”

My favorite responses so far have been on xxlmag.com, where some obviously sharp-witted readers note that, while they realize our article is fictitious, they admit that they wouldn't be surprised if a Wayne/Zac collab did happen. That crazy Weezy mofo will work with damn near anyone... See, it's funny because it's (almost) true.

But the overwhelming impression I have over the hysteria “The Efron Scandal” has generated is that some people don't recognize comedy gold, even as it's repeatedly conking them upside their thick heads.

UPDATE: New York Magazine (skeptical) and VH1's blog (gullible) add their $.02.

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