A Twitter User Accidentally Spread a (Super Tragic) Fake Story About Why 'Subway Surfers' Was Created

One of the greatest gifts of quarantine has been the mobile game Subway Surfers, which takes us back to simpler times when all a game really had to offer was running around and collecting coins and avoiding bad guys. Although it came out in 2012, a lot of people have rediscovered it and have spent countless hours surfing subways. However, Subway Surfers has recently been trending for a bizarre reason: Someone tweeted Subway Surfers' alleged origin story, but it kinda backfired — because none of it was true.

According to the tweet that @adorebestlads posted on July 29, Subway Surfers was made after the creator lost his son. The user wrote, "how old were you when you found out that the creator of subway surfers made the game in memory of his son who died while skating in the train track???" Except the tweet (which has since been deleted) is definitely not true. Subway Surfers was created by Denmark-based gaming companies SYBO Games and Kiloo. SYBO's CEO Mathias Gredel Norvig created the game simply because he liked street art, music, and skateboarding.

In 2018, at the Pocket Gamer Connects London summit, Norvig talked about his inspirations for the game, and none of them had anything to do with a son or the death of one. So, how exactly did that tweet about the "real" story behind Subway Surfers go viral? It's not entirely clear, but many people who are familiar with Subway Surfers were quick to call BS. Plus, you can easily fact-check the truth, anyway. "People really thinking fact checking is so hard, I just looked in the replies and found this, so it’s not too hard to fact check," one Twitter user wrote.

The person who originally tweeted the fake story about Subway Surfers has responded to people calling her out for spreading misinformation, but it also does seem like she didn't purposely mean to. "hi i just want to apologize for this tweet, i admit that i was wrong for not checking if it’s true. again, i’m very sorry. also, thank you for those who informed me that this was fake and this is a learning experience for me to be more careful next time," she wrote, individually apologizing to a bunch of people.

@adorebestlads claims that she found the information about Subway Surfers on social media, but didn't elaborate where, or what post. "i saw it on facebook and twitter multiple times yesterday but i was wrong so I’m really sorry," she tweeted, after someone asked her where she learned about the game's alleged origins.

The sheer amount of responses to the Twitter user's incorrect tweet may have been super overwhelming for her, since 11 hours ago, she tweeted, "sorry to bother but how do you deal with anxiety attacks??"

Today she tweeted, "hi i know no one cares but i’ll be kinda ia for awhile for my mental health and i’ll try to spend time with my irls more, ily so much and i hope you all have a great day." 

Hey, mistakes happen. Hopefully the Twitter user has learned from her own (always fact check!) and is in a better headspace now.