Claim: A real-life tour guide for inner city children compiled their humorous observations for a blog called Ghetto Hikes.
Origins: In March 2015, social media sharing sites including the
Ghetto Hikes was initially described as a blog inspired by the comments of inner city children during trips to the country. The site's creator, who identified himself as "Cory," described the children as "urban" and explained:
I'm 28. I have a full time job leading urban kids on nature hikes. I simply write down shit they say. email: ghettohikes@gmail.com
The description was later updated to include the modifier "of all races" following "urban kids" after readers opined that "urban" was a code word for black. A Twitter account for
"Mr. Cody, I ain't no snitch or nuffin' but Denny back there shovin' colored rocks in his pockets. Homie lootin' the forest!" "Is rabbits eatable? Or you just s'posed to cuddle the fuck outta them?" "Yo Mr. Cody, how many these mushrooms I gotta eat fo' I Super Mario da fuck outta dis place?" "I thought Lamar done snuck his puppy Jason on da
"E.J. back there havin' a starin' contest with da sun, slowin' down the whole
Ghetto Hikes was briefly popular in the online world throughout January and February of 2012, but readers quickly became suspicious about the veracity of its content. Several critics observed that the premise of
The sudden interest generated by Ghetto Hikes brought with it scrutiny of who was behind the briefly popular social media phenomenon. The cessation of those accounts on or around
According to the domain search conducted by @HumorForMens, Standefer registered the MensHumor.com domain name and most likely tweets from the corresponding Twitter account. We used the Whois search tool on InterNIC's domain-name registry also, but it now comes up as private. But the date Standefer registered the website is the same in the screenshot: He also registered GhettoHikes.com, which has a Twitter account of the same name. @GhettoHikes is an offensive, racist account from "Cody" who leads hikes for "urban kids." The tweets are essentially the 21st century version of the racist "blackface" films produced during the Jim Crow era.
@HumorForMens tweeted a screenshot of the domain-name registration for MensHumor.com, an apparently related site. The man behind the account? Jonathan Standefer.
Some screenshots of the purported domain registration were circulated before it was amended in order to conceal information about the site's registrant to new queries.
Despite its continued circulation, Ghetto Hikes was just a hoax consisting of fabricated quotes based upon things that some people believed inner city children might say.
Last updated: 3 February 2016
