Is It Real, or Totally Made Up?

Tons of TikTok users were shocked to see this clip cropping up of a woman who reportedly embalmed her son after he passed away.

There's no shortage of "real" stuff that's about as fake as it gets on TV and the internet. Whether we're talking about reality shows that aren't so real, or sensationalized stories that take a crumb of speculation and turn it into a fact of life, our species has an infinite capacity for either stretching the truth or straight up lying. And that's because unbelievable stories/narratives captivate our attention. So it makes sense that this TikTok about a woman who embalmed her son has gone viral.

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Did a woman actually get her son embalmed? Or is TikTok just too gullible?

There are a few cues folks can employ when it comes to making a viral video look legit. Crafting stories or "insider footage" using hushed tones in short clips is a good way of doing it. Or taking a crazy premise and then providing a piece of what looks like physical evidence to support said crazy story is another technique that some folks use.

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That seems to be the case with this trending TikTok clip that apparently shows a woman who has embalmed her dead son because she couldn't get over the fact that he died.

In the clip we see a man showing off the said embalmed kid in the video to show just how distraught and deranged she's become over his passing.

He's rocking a selfie stick and very cool Acapulco shirt and reveals what is supposed to be an embalmed child. The story goes she was using her ex-husband's child support money to embalm the kid to keep him in her living room. Ick.

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Now the embalmed body in question looks more like a weird, shiny statue you'd see outside of a fast-food restaurant, or maybe that's just what my mind is telling me it is because I don't want to think that someone would actually want to do that to their soccer-loving child — freezing them in ball-gripping stasis for all eternity.

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So is this TikTok about a woman who embalmed her son real? Or fake?

In the words of Alec Baldwin, you need to "consider the source." This story gained popularity on Caso Cerrado, a Telemundo series that's been accused of scripting some of the wilder cases on the program. Although it's headed by TV Personality Ana Maria Polo, who happens to be a legitimate attorney, many viewers think that the show is straight-fibbing about a lot of the things that have occurred on the program.

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Ana Maria Polo does state that the show's participants are all real and not paid actors and that the show does skew more towards the entertainment aspect. She does "eliminate" cases she believes are "false" or if she thinks said participants are acting.

So it seems that as long as people believe their own nonsense or can convince others that they do, then they've got a spot on Caso Cerrado. And TikTok's For You page, apparently.

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