Local restaurant Shalooby’s attracts Indiana football fans from across the country to enjoy a post-game meal.
But this “beloved” eatery does not exist. It’s an internet hoax.
IU adjunct Jeff LaFave is the person behind the joke. He saw Shalooby’s in an article filled with AI-generated images and false Bloomington factoids. Soon, he posted on his X account, BTown Moose.
what in the hell is "Shalooby's," AI article?? pic.twitter.com/pIMS320mmC — moose (@btownmoose) October 17, 2024
“I started daydreaming about it, made a photoshop of it in the old Cafe Pizzaria building,” LaFave said. “Just for a one-off joke I didn’t think would go very far.”
Related: Cafe Pizzaria, Bloomington’s oldest pizza restaurant, closes
But far did it go. LaFave’s creation went viral in a matter of hours. Fellow X users reposted the photoshopped image and dubbed it as the best place to get a soggy sandwich.
IU fans wrote “Shalooby’s” across the windshields of their cars. They also wrote it on signs that could be seen on Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff show, which attracted a huge crowd outside Memorial Stadium last week before the IU-Nebraska game.
Shalooby’s even has its own website that LaFave had no part in making.
“It just kind of made me feel like I was trapped in a Twilight Zone episode,” LaFave said. “I told a joke so good everyone else wanted to tell it, and it was out of my hands.”
LaFave enjoys watching the joke take a life of its own and hopes that maybe it will one day become a reality.
Read more: IU football’s ‘multi-generational’ season rolls on with 31-17 victory
