A curious image crossed my Instagram feed today, when a seemingly non-dumb acquaintance posted a screenshot of a tweet supposedly written by Oprah, the former talk show host who is supposedly running for President because it's 2016 2017 2018 and nothing is real and this whole circus is just one 6,000-year-old cosmic nightmare. Here it is:

Shane Missler, for the lucky uninitiated, is a 20-year-old who recently won a $451 million Mega Millions jackpot because this is America and so of course a 20-year-old now has more unearned wealth than some nation-states. Soon after Missler hit the literal jackpot, dozens of Instagram and Twitter accounts like the one above started impersonating him with offers of free cash. Why? Who knows. Some people fish, some people cat-fish. We all have weird hobbies.

It would very easy to verify that this account is fake on your own. You could google it, or you could actually look at Oprah's Twitter, which has plenty about the deadly landslides in California but zilch about Shane Missler. That however, would require leaving Instagram and going to Twitter, and who has time for that? Everyone does, but I'm going to make it even easier still: SHANE MISSLER IS NOT GIVING ANYWAY CASH OR PLAY STATIONS OR FREE HUGS ON SOCIAL MEDIA. STOP SHARING THOSE IMAGES. THEY AREN'T REAL AND PEOPLE HAVE A HARD ENOUGH TIME FIGURING OUT WHAT IS TRUE THESE DAYS. LOOK AT THE PRESIDENT—HE JUST HAS TO SAY THE WORDS "FAKE NEWS" AND HALF THE ELECTORATE AND MY ENTIRE GRADUATING CLASS BELIEVES HIM. YOU ARE MAKING OUR REJECTION OF REALITY WORSE.

And if you want free money, you're going to have to get it the old fashioned way: by inheriting it from your daddy. Sorry, guys. It's the American way.