“Like any successful scam, the hoax worked for two reasons: it seemed believable, and it was beautifully executed. Metallica are well known (and frequently vilified) on the net for their legal tactics, and the story was posted on a perfect copy of MTV’s news page. Because it looked like a genuine story and was written in the same style as MTV’s other news stories, many net users didn’t notice that the page was not on MTV’s site; it even linked to an official statement on the Metallica website – again, a clever fake.” —Word of Mouse [Metallica E and F Chord Spoof] (Guardian)

This hoax didn’t fool me when it first surfaced… it was just too perfectly designed to push all the right buttons.