Bullet proof baby hoax viral gets lots of press attention.

Sometime I find it just a tad depressing how easy it seems to be to trick journalists into writing about your viral as if it was the real deal. Take Bullet Proof Baby shows a woman shooting at a kevlar-dressed pram with her own baby in it. The site not only claims to sell everything from toddler tazers to baby riot gear, but also that "Stella decided to establish 'bullet proof baby' when her first son, Randy, was nearly killed in a drive by shooting in 2004."

Naturally the press just ate this up, a mother who shoots with an automatic rifle at her own baby? Who wouldn't love that story? Looks like everyone who got the pressrelease wrote about it, Metro.uk, bounty.uk, slashgear and many more. A few have updated their stories now that it's been revealed that the viral is for a film, so aftonbladet.se published a correction, as did Raising Kids, Nine MSN and the Daily Telegraph Australia. Even the presurfer fell for it.

Course, it's fake, and clearly marked "All rights reserved © Shoot ‘Em Up Holdings Copyright 2007" at the bottom of each bullet proof baby page - I do wonder how on earth the journalists missed that at first. None of the products can be bought, they are all "sold out", which would be rather odd right as you've press released to the entire world that your shop exists.
Instead it's an ad for Shoot ' em Up, the new movie which will probably have the highest body count of 2007. There's trailers on their site and you can see the Quicktime trailer here, the movie promises a lot of shooting, at one point Clive Owen even shoots the umbilical cord off a newborn. The movie is not yet rated yet but I think it's safe to assume that recent mothers may want to avoid it since the babies keep getting in the line of fire, yikes!