i've seen literally 50x more people complaining about the toothbrush thing compared to actual blogs, which is funny to me but okay, I understand.
It's probably significant that all the places i've seen publish it are mass production reblog factories. all due respect, these are not well regarded news outlets. maybe that's not obvious to the general public or even the cyber expert public? There's a difference.
contrary to the viral outrage, this is absolutely not an example of "a dozen well-regarded news outlets" being tricked. It's still worth learning from as an example of the pitfalls of aggregation but you all could act a little less outraged, if I didn't know better I'd think this thing was just published on the front page of the washington post. everyone, drink a glass of water and get some air. This is not a big deal :)