15 Viral Images That Turned Out To Be Fake

If the Internet had a museum, the “Holy! Is that picture real?” section would need its own parking lot. Every week, a new picture swoops into your feed: a shark jumping out to get the guy on a helicopter, a Pope rocking a sick puffy coat, the moon looking the size of a watermelon you could punt into orbit. You pause, you gasp, you send it to the group chat with “This can’t be real, can it?”—and somewhere, a Photoshop/AI wizard collects a tiny, glittering karma point.

Here you’ll find those magical moments when your mouth screams, “REAL!” but your brain is looking for a reason to disprove that silly picture. We’re not here to ruin anyone’s fun; we’re here to separate pixels from reality, like a bouncer checking IDs at Club “Veritas.” Some of these viral images started as jokes. Others got “improved” by AI until hands multiplied and shadows forgot how light works. A few are honest misunderstandings that escaped their captions and went viral.

Get ready to witness the Internet’s greatest hits (and misses) explained—when possible—and see the originals, unaltered photos.

1. The Balenciaga Pope (2023)

Deepfake panic went crazy when the Internet was hit with a bombshell—Pope Francis wearing a stylish Balenciaga puffer! The photo lit up feeds in March 2023. The image was created using Midjourney, and you can clearly see this by examining the unusual shadow of the glasses and the stiff hand. Many were fooled, and the AI-prompter, Chicago’s Pablo Xavier, later admitted it was just a joke.