The Chinese Art of Fungus Shiue?

ByCraig Haley

Really? You’re going to share that?

In the latest inexplicable example of what many Facebook users are willing to share, “just in case”, take a look at this post which claims sharing a photo of a big pile of money will result in you receiving money in 4 days.

It seems this photo is gaging quite accurately the number of Facebook users who are naïve, silly or facetious enough to share a photo that claims doing so will make them richer. In one instance of the photo being uploaded, within 4 days that number is over 700 thousand users.

moneybags

The photo is actually money taken from a Mexican drug cartel
To share! This only happens. Every 823 years! Share and you’ll receive money in 4 days! If you don’t share and look at the image you’ll stay poor! According to the Chinese art of fungus Shiue. Just in case gonna share!

The post above is actually a condensed (and probably a jovial) variant of a much older hoax that falsely asserts a given month that has 5 Fridays, Saturdays or Sundays is an occurrence known as “Money Bags” that only occurs every 823 years, according to Chinese Feng Shui. Of course this version omits much of that information and changes Feng Shui fo Fungus Shiue.

Whilst many of these hoaxes are somewhat obviously just that, it is always worth noting that sharing frivolous information such as this, despite seeming innocuous enough, can have very real consequences that run much deeper than just wasting your own time and that of your friends as well.

“Likewhore” Pages can use such information to garner fans which can then be exposed to more serious scams or to make money for scammers (learn how here) and such rumours only result in more misinformation being spread across social media. To learn more about the darker side to spreading nonsense on social media, read this article about not spreading rumours and understand that “just in case” is never an acceptable justification.

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