It turns out, however, that the readers who take fabricated news seriously are much more entertaining. A new Tumblr blog, Literally Unbelievable, chronicles their Facebook discussions.
In response to The Onion story about the Harry Potter movie, for instance, one woman posted, "it sounds legit...it came straight from warner bros...click on the link and watch the video it tells you how they'll do it." Another reads, "the Fans they interview like it because I guess the part in the Books this is telling was super Important."
The man who started the blog, 24-year-old freelance writer Hudson Hongo, says he launched it last Friday after noticing sincere responses to the abortionplex article, most of which used considerably stronger words.
"I found the sheer number of people reading Onion articles sincerely (across the political spectrum) a surprise," he says. "I wasn't sure whether it was crueler to share these remarkable texts publicly or to keep them to myself. Then I got bored and just did it."
