Jordan Peele Made a Convincing Fake News Awareness Video 'Featuring' Barack Obama

The 72-second clip actually looks pretty real.

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If there's one thing to take away from the current era and political climate, it's to be more vigilant about falling for fake news. Teaming up with Buzzfeed, director Jordan Peele shared an important message about believing everything you see on the internet. The clip starts off as what looks like a public service announcement from former President Barack Obama, but it's later revealed to be Peele doing a voiceover in the convincingly digitally altered video. Peele and the faux Obama are seen in split screen for the remainder of the video.

"We’re entering an era in which our enemies can make it look like anyone is saying anything at any point in time, even if they would never say those things," Peele says in character as Obama. "For example: 'Ben Carson is in the Sunken Place' or 'President Trump is a total and complete dipshit,'" he continues. Despite the fact that many wish the former President could actually say those things, for now, it's for the purpose of showing just how deceptive technology and the media can be.

The project came to life after a conversation between Peele and Buzzfeed founder and CEO Jonah Peretti, who also happens to be Peele's brother in law. Produced in collaboration with Peele's Monkeypaw Productions, BuzzFeed creative director Jared Sosa figured out how to use motion graphics program After Effects and video editing software Fakeapp to superimpose Peele's mouth over Obama's, later synchronizing its positioning and further refining the footage to its realistic final product. No word on whether or not Obama himself signed off on the video, but it is pretty convincing and definitely gets the point across. We're placing our bets that the clip will somehow still circulate in the exact way it was meant to be commentary for.

Watch the full video above.

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