I learnt recently that ‘Waldo, the Tourist of Death’ or as we called him ‘The Guy Who Was Everywhere’ is actually Hungarian, his name is Péter Guzli! :)
He first appeared on the Internet as he was posing on observation deck of the WTC tower just before the airplane hit the building. Many people believed that it was real and the camera was found in the debris.
After the incident Guzli edited a Boing into his own 4 year old photo and sent it to 15 of his friends. In 24 hour it got to the furthest point of the Internet. 3 days later it was on the front page of the online edition of the Stern and other major sites examined too if the picture was real.
Later it became an Internet phenomenon and Waldo appeared on many pictures of historical tragedies, events and movie posters/snapshots. The touristofdeath.com has collected 1300+ variations already.
The related Wikipedia article is here. Another article on a major Hungarian website is here (in Hungarian).
The photos from index.hu, Wikipedia and touristofdeath.com
------------
UPDATE 08.01.2012
Peter Guzli recently apologized for creating the picture ten years ago: "It was a private matter - I assumed my friends would recognize me and call me to see if I was alright, but they didn't, they posted it on to other friends and suddenly it was all over the world.
The article in English: http://web.orange.co.uk/article/news/Hungarian_apologises_for_911_hoax
and in Hungarian: http://hvg.hu/itthon/20110912_tourist_guy_bocsanatkeres
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment