'Pilot' says he Photoshops his selfies, and yet somehow people still think they're real
There are some outrageously cheeky jokes that take so long to die they become tedious.
Take for example Daniel Centeno, a.k.a. pilotganso on his 57,000-follower strong Instagram.
For the past few years, Centeno has been posting photographs that show him taking a selfie out of a plane window while mid-flight.
Naturally, those pictures are aren't real.
Our Centeno uses a classic Photoshop technique -- superimposing an aerial image over a selfie from outside the cockpit -- in order to fool his tens of thousands of Instagram followers.
There are several signs of manipulation -- the pilot's hair not blowing against the wind, the physical implausibility of taking a stable photo considering the plane's actual speed, and, above all, the reflection in the pilot's sunglasses showing an airport runway's tarmac (!) -- which indicate Centeno took the selfie while the plane was on the ground, not in the air:
If that wasn't enough, Centeno admitted in the captions the photos were fake.
"I have to let you know that this photo is fake guys, just in case," he writes in one. "Photoshop mode ON," he says in another one.
So you'd be excused for thinking there are genuinely no doubts whatsoever this guy is tricking his followers so why on earth am I reading this article? Let's just ignore this fool and go ahead with our miserable lives, should we?
Think twice, as they say, because pilotganso's latest outrageous post, later deleted, triggered a deluge of articles. "It's already my second hometown #dubai selfie," he captioned:
Now, we feel we shouldn't give more media attention to this chap, but considering that it's out there in the public attention, we're caving in.
As an eagle-eyed commenter pointed out on the forum "Flyertalk", the picture is "definitely a fake".
"Ship ascending northbound from nowhere. Direction of shade not matching those of houses. Winglet color (inward) not matching Fly Dubai scheme. Definitively a fake," our smart-ass friend wrote. No way!
Maybe we should drop this holier-than-thou attitude considering there are posts out there wondering "Is Instagram pilot's 'cockpit selfie' all it seems" or stating "People Don’t Know Whether Pictures Of Pilot Outside A Plane Are Real".
Mashable has reached out to Centeno for comment, and to beg him to stop.
Topics Instagram
