VEGAS MYTHS BUSTED: Videos Never Displayed on the Sphere

Posted on: October 16, 2023, 08:06h. 

Last updated on: October 28, 2023, 07:42h.

Corey Levitan Read More
Expertise: Commercial Gaming, Entertainment, Expert Insight, Las Vegas, Restaurants, Las Vegas Myths.

Some of the videos flashing across the MSG Sphere’s 366-foot-tall exterior display — a blinking eye, a basketball, the Moon — have been unbelievable. And, considering how many millions of social media users have proven themselves willing to believe anything, it’s not surprising how many fake Sphere displays have attempted to take advantage of this disappointing fact.

The Breaking News Network falls for one of the most literal examples of a false flag ever. (Image: Twitter)

A video posted to Twitter last week, appearing to show the Israeli flag, was exposed as a fake a day later by the Sphere itself, but not until after it received hundreds of thousands of likes and shares. Even news outlets fell for it, including the Breaking News Network and gossip reporter Perez Hilton, both of whose accounts have yet to remove the posts.

Don’t Believe Everything You Sphere

The original poster of the Israeli video was a Twitter account named “Tallywood,” which is owned by Tal Cooperman, a visual effects artist who works as executive creative director for Station Casinos. It seems the Israeli native didn’t create the video as intentional misinformation, but as a way to show solidarity with the festivalgoers attacked, killed, and taken hostage by Hamas on October 7.

Regardless, intentionally faking Sphere videos has become something of a thing. Not only does Tiktok have a “Vegas sphere fake or real” category, but someone invented a TikTok filter that puts users’ faces right on the Exosphere, though its results don’t appear very realistic.

Below are some of the more convincing — and enjoyable — faked Sphere images to date. Hopefully, you haven’t already shared any. And if you haven’t yet, please don’t start.

Windows Error Message

First shared in early June, a month before the Sphere opened, this image purports to show the Sphere displaying a Microsoft Windows error message, aka “the blue screen of death,” instructing the operator that the computer needs restarting. It’s a shame Sphere programmers didn’t think of this themselves. It would have made a hysterical April Fool’s prank. (Image: Twitter)

Star Wars Death Star

Twitter user @VegasIssues posted this on July 12. Not intending to pass it off as real, the account titled it: “Dear sphere people… GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT.” (Image: Twitter)

Kirby

Another image tweeted by @VegasIssues as part of the same series, this is the titular character and protagonist of the Kirby series of video games, owned by Nintendo and HAL Laboratory, who first appeared in a 1992 Game Boy title. (Image: Twitter)

Not Max Headroom

Anyone mistaking this image for Max Headroom, the mid-’80s spokesman for New Coke, totally missed this Sphere fake’s prescient message to the Las Vegas casino industry. This is actually the cybercriminal who, disguised as Headroom, hacked into the signals of two Chicago TV stations — for 17 seconds and 90 seconds — on the night of Nov. 22, 1987. A criminal investigation by the FCC never turned up the culprit.  (Image: TikTok)

Bingus the Cat

Finishing on a less ominous note, we have Bingus. The hairless sphinx went viral in March 2020 via an Instagram video. In the latter part of 2020, the feline surged once again on YouTube. Finally, thanks to TikTok, Bingus enjoyed a brief recent resurgence as a Sphere forgery. (Image: TikTok)

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