Chei... This Is Probably The Biggest April Fool Of The Decade.
When news began circulating that Joel Osteen had resigned, a lot of people believed the story as the story moved from one city to the other. That online prank heard
around the world may have made Joel Osteen more popular than ever.
A rumor claiming Joel
Osteen was resigning from his church because he'd lost his faith first surfaced
on April 2. The church thought it would die down, but instead it exploded on
social media.
“Friends were texting
from South Africa and Australia,” said Osteen. “I thought, ‘Wow, something big
is going on here.’”
Someone created a series
of phony websites pretending to be among sites like CNN and JoelOsteen.com
saying the pastor of America's largest church was quitting and that he'd lost
his faith.
“To us, it was so
comical,” Osteen said. “We didn't think much about it except that someone's
having an April Fool’s joke.”
Large organizations,
including faith-based ones, often have people infringing on their trademark.
“There are people every
week that want to use our name. Some of it’s good will, but you can’t do that,
some of it's for fraud,” Osteen explained.
So what kind of impact
did this rumor have on a church with 40,000 attendees each week? Ironically, it
may help increase the flock even more.
“What's meant for harm,
God uses to your advantage,” Osteen said.
In the last seven days,
Lakewood Church has added nearly 49,000 Facebook friends and 25,000 Twitter
followers.
If the prankster can be
found, Lakewood Church’s attorneys will ask him to cease and desist, but they
do not plan to sue.
Legal expert have
said that the fake websites violate trademark and copyright
rules. Media outlets are typically very vigilant about that, so CNN and the
other news groups may not be turning the other cheek.
If you were in Joel Osteen's shoe what would you do?
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