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On Thursday, September 21, 2023, the expression “Glory to Urine” started trending on X (formerly Twitter) after many videos of it appearing on a billboard in Times Square, New York City, went viral. Initially, X users assumed that the phrase “Glory to Ukraine” was accidentally misspelled and that the message was meant as a welcome greeting for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was in the USA attending the United Nations General Assembly.
In fact, two digital news outlets, Not The Bee and The Blaze, both published articles reporting the same. However, soon it was revealed by New Yorkers that the viral video that surfaced on X was fake, and no such banner was put up in the entire city of New York.
In fact, NBC News’ senior reporter Ben Collins personally visited the site at the intersection of 42nd/ 8th in downtown Manhattan and debunked the viral video, saying that the clipping was digitally altered as the scaffolding that appeared on it was missing in real-time.
The viral “Glory to Urine” billboard video never appeared in New York City
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the President of Ukraine, is currently in New York for the 78th UN General Assembly along with other world leaders. However, it was only he who appeared to receive a welcome message from a New York-based company, which was supposed to read “Glory to Ukraine” but was misspelled as “Glory to Urine.” In fact, the viral image and video of the error message flooded X on Thursday.
But later, it was revealed that the “Glory to Urine” message on the Times Square billboard at the intersection of 42nd/8th in downtown Manhattan, New York City, was fake. In fact, in real-time, no such message was ever displayed on the said billboard.
But long before the truth came to the forefront, two online media outlets, such as Not The Bee and The Blaze, even published the piece of fake news. While the former went with the headline, “Zelensky was greeted with this ‘Glory to Urine’ banner in New York in apparent typo;” the latter reported, “OOPS: Billboard in New York accidentally greet Zelenskyy with ‘Glory to Urine’ instead of ‘Glory to Ukraine’” Both articles have been removed since the viral image and footage were debunked online.
Among a few X users who contributed to the debunking of the fake content was someone named Markian Kuzmowycz (@markiank). He posted a photograph as well as a video after he visited the billboard site. Not only did he confirm that no such message was being displayed on the Times Square banner, but he also gave context as to why. He pointed out that the scaffolding clearly visible on the fake clips was not present currently, additionally noting how the reflection proved that the footage and image were digitally manipulated.
Likewise, NBC News’ investigative reporter Ben Collins also visited the corner and called out people on the platform for being fooled by a hoax. He also posted a sarcastic video of himself showing the live footage praising the “ingenuity of American construction workers” and pointing out how they were able to alter the entire cityscape in a matter of a few hours, as the visible infrastructure in the fake video had no resemblance to the pizza and apparel stores that were now present in that exact same spot.
“You know where it said 'Glory to Urine' this morning, and all that scaffolding was there and all that stuff was different? Now it's just all gone, and they put in new, entirely new businesses, all today. So really good work, America. I'm very proud of us,” he quipped.
So far, it remains unclear who first posted the video or image or when the backdrop was captured, even though it was definite that it wasn’t from recent times. However, some X users claimed that the fake content allegedly first appeared on Russian websites such as War Gonzo and was propaganda amidst Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the logo of Fox News Digital, which appeared on the duplicitous image and video, was also revealed to be digitally altered, as no such news was reported by the news outlet. In fact, a Fox News spokesperson told Snopes via email that they were not responsible for the viral video.
