Hoaxes and Literature

Hoaxes are often considered a form of literature due to the way that they portray imaginative storytelling through the use of detailed and evidential language. Furthermore, they are told through newspaper articles many times, and news is considered a specific form of literature. Therefore, the definition of literature is any story that is written or portrayed to an audience with the intention of transferring the author’s tone, stance, and information into the readers’ mindset. The distinction between literature and hoaxes then is derived from the ideal that almost anything can be considered literature while only a specific subset of literary works can be considered hoaxes. This specific subset contains an intent from the author to deceive the reader. The intent can be to either benefit him/herself, society, or simply for the entertainment of a good and unbelievable story. Every April Fools’ day in my town, the local newspaper, the Observer, prints completely false news filled with controversial topics. For example, this year the newspaper said that the Kardashians were opening a store in a local shopping center and for those citizens who didn’t know that this was a joke, there was an uproar of gossip. This hoax was meant to deceive the readers of the newspaper, and to lead them to temporarily be drawn in by society’s minuscule dilemmas and “hot topics”.  The newspaper is a reliable form of literature every other day of the year as it portrays the local happenings of Sarasota, FL, but on April Fools’ day, it is a piece of literature that deceives the residences of the town with hoaxes of all types and genres whether it’s for a laugh or to cause stirring conversations.