Is This The 'Darkest Baby In The World'?
— FACT OR FAKE?
By Sadho Ram — 14 Jun 2015, 06:42 PM
If — by any chance — there wasn't a self-imposed hiatus on your social media escapades in the past week of June, possibilities are you came across a set of two photographs. One of those two photos shows a newborn with pitch-dark skin tone and the other shows a two-year-old, with similar skin tone, playing with a doctor.
According to the Dailypedia, several blogs are calling the baby as a record holder for being the 'darkest baby in the world'. However, as the Dailypedia aptly notes, it seems dubious that the Guinness World Records has such a racist category.
The baby, according to a RachFeed report that cites a website called Social Trends, was allegedly born in South Africa recently. Although, there are no other actual news reports correlating with either the RachFeed or Social Trends' claims.
Upon a closer inspection, it can be ascertained that the baby's eyes appears so black that they resemble a doll more than an actual child
Not only that, they also lack the sclera or the white portion.
On the other hand, even if the baby is real and its skin tone is pitch-dark, its skin lacks texture and the glow that new born babies have.
Moreover, if the baby was born recently, as claimed, what explains this second photograph showing the same kid aged at least two?
There are absolutely no verifiable source of origin for these two images. No actual news reports. Even reverse-image search on Google fails to turn up any prominent result. It's as if someone just dropped them on the Internet last week and is now having a good laugh over how the whole of Internet is freaking out over them. Which is actually might be the case. Someone with good photo editing skills simply colour-touched the photo with the baby (possibly a doll) and circulated it on the Internet for kicks.
You see, not everything you read on the Internet is true.
As evident by SAYS' weekly column called Fact Or Fake that debunks hoaxes and myths circulating online, it would be safe to say that these photos are a clever work of image-manipulation.
However, in case you happen to come across a credible source of information that verifies the authenticity of the two photos, do write to us at [email protected] and we'll make sure to update our story. Until then, rest assured that it's a Fake!