Just saw a news article from texas that says if you see fruit at a gas station, you need to leave immediately.

They say this is because drug dealers are putting fruit at gas stations to identify their customers. If you pick up a piece of fruit sitting on a gas pump, it means you want drugs.

The article warns that innocent bystanders may accidentally pick up the fruit and be falsely identified as a drugs customer.

So stupid.

I did a little digging and found the original article that the rest of these articles are copying, and in the original, the author cites an instagram video that explains how the fruit-drug thing works.

Except the video is by a comedian (from bakersfield). His fans seem to get that it's a joke, but people who didn't know him are taking it seriously.

@MLE_online So essentially a comedian was dunking on a drug-dealer from his hometown Texas Gas station that used fruit to signal to passerby’s consumers?
@EVDHmn the original video didn't even mention texas. every article that's picking it up is adapting it to their own home state
@MLE_online woah predatory behavior?
@EVDHmn what
@MLE_online well predatory behavior in marketing if it’s grabbing everyone’s home state who reads it