Heartwarming Proposal Actually Heartbreaking Hoax

If you’re one of the thousands who helped “Frank’s Marriage Proposal in Central Park” go viral, we’re regret to inform you that your romantic dream is dead. It was all a hoax.

“Frank,” as it turns out, is actually one Doug Darwin, and the proposal — allegedly filmed by a bunch of hidden cameras and streamed live — was in fact designed as a promo for new company Thinkmodo, dedicated to “mining the marketing potential of viral videos.”

To tell the truth, we were slightly relieved to learn this was fake, given that the rendition of “Stand by Me” is really awful and would have been a desecration to anyone whose favorite song it actually was. Although not as relieved as we were that this one was fake. At some point, the circle of viral proposal videos has to die — it might as well be by its own hand.