A TikTok video of a Gen Z university teacher exposing a student’s attempt to trick him with an old-school “fake document” trick has gone viral.
The video was posted by TikToker Boro (@perpetuallyblurryglasses) on Nov. 11 and has accumulated over 1.3 million views. In the clip, he explains that he teaches undergrads at a university and alleges that one of his students purposely tried to submit his assignment in the wrong format so that he could not open it on Turnitin, a plagiarism detection software.
“So I downloaded here and I tried to open it in my computer, which would usually work with Word as well. But something about it just can’t be opened. However, I took the effort to plug it into a website to open it. And when I opened that file, this is what showed up,” he says.
He then shows a document that just consists of a single picture that says the document can’t be viewed because the browser isn’t updated—a last-ditch attempt by the student to trick his teacher.
@perpetuallyblurryglasses Wasted a good chunk of my day playing investigation too 🤡 #storytime ♬ original sound – Boro
The teacher continues, “So first of all, it’s not the assignment, but second of all the student has the audacity to copy the screen thing, just like a screenshot from like a thing to say that like oh, even if you manage to open the file is because your browser is not updated that you can’t read this file, but it’s obviously copied and it just looks so wrong.”
He says that the assignment is designed to help the students practice how to write essays and is only worth 5% of the course. “If this is what you give up on then why the f*ck did you bother to go to university,” he says.
In the comment section of the video, users shared their reactions, with one commenting: “Why put the effort of doing all that when you could’ve just written the essay.”
“This is why I tell my students if they submit something in the wrong format, they’re getting failed. I’m not even bothering trying to open it,” a second user remarked.
“so this is the reason why all the lecturers always said, submit the assignments in .doc/pdf/hardcopy only,” a third said.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Boro via TikTok direct messages for comment.