Steven Spielberg And The Jurassic Park Meme Prank That Won't Die

Gwynne Watkins
·Writer, Yahoo Entertainment
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Is Steven Spielberg a brilliant director, or a stone-cold animal killer? That depends on how closely you look at the photo above.

Last summer, a prankster posted this behind-the-scenes pic from 1993’s Jurassic Park to Facebook, with a caption condemning the “recreational hunter happily posing next to a Triceratops he just slaughtered.”

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The poster, Jay Branscomb, urged people to share the photo “so the world can name and shame this despicable man” — and over 40,000 Facebook users did just that. Nearly a year later, the photo has gone back into circulation — and this time, it’s duping people on Twitter.

Yesterday morning, Twitter user Chris Tilly posted the Spielberg photo with the caption, “This guy thinks it’s cool to kill defenseless animals then take a selfie. Jerk.”

His post has already been retweeted over 500 times, and even got a rise of out Pulitzer Prize-nominated author Joyce Carol Oates (though it’s hard to tell, given the limitations of Twitter, if she’s in on the joke).

So barbaric that this should still be allowed... No conservation laws in effect wherever this is? https://t.co/hgavm9IBaM

Obviously, Spielberg wasn’t responsible for the death of an animal that went extinct 65 million years ago. And yet if Facebook comments are to be believed, plenty of people have been fooled into outrage by the picture of him with an animatronic Triceratops puppet.

Part of it is surely just the internet’s tendency to insta-react to everything, with or without the whole story.

But last summer, it was also a matter of timing. Branscomb posted on the photo on Facebook just weeks after photos of 19-year-old Texas cheerleader Kendall Jones, posing with big game she killed in Africa, went viral. In other words: the internet was already furious over the killing of exotic creatures, and everyone was primed to get angry all over again.

Watch the "sick Triceratops" scene from 1993's 'Jurassic Park.'

As for why it’s going viral again now, we’re guessing it has something to do with Jurassic World hitting theaters on Friday. Maybe director Colin Trevorrow should add a disclaimer: No dinosaurs were harmed by Steven Spielberg during the making of this film.