A 12-year-old kid made himself Australia's prime minister for 2 days on Wikipedia
It isn't surprising no one noticed. In Australia, the prime minister changes every few weeks. Okay, months. OK, years.
Either way, one brilliant Australian kid named Orley Fenelon, aged 12, decided he deserved the title as much as the next bloke (or sheila). So he did what any self-respecting Internet child does, and made himself the leader on Wikipedia.
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As anyone that is anyone knows, Wikipedia holds all truth. So in actual fact, Fenelon was Australia's 30th Prime Minister for two days. He stands alongside Australian meme-generator Tony Abbott, the first female leader Julia Gillard and the man who won't stop speaking Mandarin, Kevin Rudd.
It was a slick manoeuvre that has seen him skyrocket to an insane level of popularity in mere hours, outshining the current PM Malcolm Turnbull without his knowledge. As one would do, when they are made the leader of the free island, Fenelon did the media rounds in Australia talking about how he had changed the world.
The young gun told Mashable Australia, after verifying his identity, that he didn't actually expect his Wikipedia joke with friends to turn into global news. In fact, he has done similar pranks before but without the same level of interest.
"I was just bored and it was a running joke among friends. We came up with the joke of fooling around with the prime minister. Me and a couple of friends were editing Wikipedia pages and it kinda went from there," he said.
"I thought it was just a stupid Internet thing that I would make a joke about, get above average amount of likes on Instagram and just totally forget about forever." The Internet, as we know, does not forget. Fenelon has made his place in the history books, forever.
Like the rest of Australia, Fenelon's parents are as proud as punch of their innovative son. "They are having a great laugh through all of this," he said.
We could have had good things if the Year 7 student stayed in the hot seat. "I would have declared the national food to be kebabs," he said. By all accounts, that's a huge, and worthwhile, step up from the Innovation Boom.
This was not to be, as the information was quickly deleted and his account was shut down after he tried to make an edit on a page dedicated to Orley Fenelon. Suddenly, Fenelon was just a regular teenager again.
That won't stop this little Internet destroyer though, he told us to watch this space for his next project. "Shutting down my account won’t stop me, unfortunately," he warned.
Next President of the U.S. of A, perhaps?
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Jenni Ryall is Mashable's VP of Content Strategy. She spends her time launching cool, new things such as Mashable Deals and Mashable Reels. On the other days, she is developing strong partnerships with companies including Apple News, Flipboard, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter and Reddit.
