Holland Officially More Gullible Than USA

11th February 2006

Editor's Note: For the attention of Dutch people visiting this website: this is a satirical story based on real events.

The tiny European nation of Holland has officially been designated as having a higher percentage of gullible people in it than the United States of America. Whilst many Europeans had widely considered the world superpower to be unintelligent, unable to understand irony and completely naïve it actually turns out that one of their own countries is leagues ahead in that department.

Given that Europe regularly criticises the USA for being too right wing and backwards thinking in its stance on human rights and the economy, it is even more ironic that it was Holland – perhaps the most left wing and liberal country in the EU – that was found to be the world's most gullible western country.

“I was gobsmacked,” Lead Random Perspective researcher Keith Wilson declared, “I mean Holland, of all places. I mean I know they are all high on marijuana but to believe an article from this website is factual is beyond me. I mean, I even know a guy from Utah who knows it's not true.”

The article being believed by a high proportion of Dutch internet users is one stating that 37% of Americans believe that Jack Bauer is real – this is not true. At least not according to any research done by Random Perspective. Random Perspective does not conduct research, it does not even have a research department or employ anyone as a lead researcher. In fact, anyone described as having such a position is therefore fictional. Please note, if this news story was not accessible by Dutch people there would have been no need for the two previous sentences.

Dutch people were outraged by the findings of Random Perspective's research claiming that the language barrier prevented them from understanding the humour. Many believed that as it was on a foreign website it had to be real because nobody understands jokes told in a foreign language. Keith Wilson, head of Random Perspective's PR department made the following observation:

“Whilst it is true that I would probably not understand a joke written in Dutch, largely due to the fact I can not read or write Dutch, and also because I do not exist, I feel compelled to point out that the joke was not limited to text form. There was a picture on the story that would make most people – regardless of the language – question the article's legitimacy.”

He then asked what serious news publication would post the following picture on it's website. (For the benefit of web users in Holland, please note that as we are not a serious news publication, we can post the picture on our website without damaging our argument.)