You may have heard of Garcinia Cambogia, an alleged “superfood” that reportedly allows you to “burn fat” and shed that extra junk in the trunk. The fruit is shaped like a pumpkin and grows in Southeast Asia and India. And this is the best part — it’s endorsed by talk show health guru Dr. Mehemet Oz.
Over the weekend, spam started trickling out on Twitter — hell, they even had @HitchBitch, the Twitter account of the late Christopher Hitchens, who died of cancer in 2011, urging his followers to use it. “Get fit for the summer with this easy diet,” the hacker wrote on behalf of Hitchens, who’s shaking his head on the other side.
Others included The Daily Caller‘s own Ad Director Alex Treadway, The Washington Examiner‘s Rebecca Berg and NRCC digital director Gerrit Lansing. Treadway counted his lucky stars, saying, “I am so fortunate for finding this!” Berg said the supplement had worked for her: “DrOz is an amazing doctor! I lost 10lbs so far!” Lansing: “I hate fad diets, but this fruit is legit!”
When BuzzFeed‘s Andrew Kaczynksi informed Lansing that he’d been hacked, Lansing replied, “shit, thank u.”
Please note: Treadway does not make a habit of addressing anyone’s weight issues.
Foreign policy reporter Laura Rozen, whose work appears on Al-Monitor, and others were disgusted that the spammer resurrected Hitchens on Easter to push the product. “Ugh, even the late Hitchens’ Twitter sending this spam,” she groused. Yair Rosenberg, a writer for Tablet Magazine, deadpanned, “Normally, I’d be skeptical of miracle weight loss claims, but since so many journalists are tweeting about it, it must be true.”
An online ad says the supplement has sold out in most major stores but as of April 20 it’s still available online. They make sure to declare in the fine print that Oz hasn’t endorsed their product or any other, just that he backs the extract ingredient.
Neetzan Zimmerman, formerly of Gawker, now of Whisper and known as a web traffic guru, announced Sunday afternoon that we could all cut down on urging our loved ones and followers to drop a few pounds by kindly not clicking on the link. “That one weird trick to avoid having your Twitter account hacked: Don’t click on any weight loss links,” he warned.
Uh oh… Please don’t take it personally if you get something from me suggesting you’re looking a little fleshy these days. I may have clicked on one of those links — for reporting purposes.