Fake Country Tapestries

On Oct. 30, a Twitter user posted an innocuous meme poking fun at the fact that some Americans are notoriously bad at geography. Days later, the notion that an extra country exists attached to the Iberian peninsula is going viral and taking Europe by storm. Fans of the Listenbourg meme have catapulted the fictional country into the spotlight, creating a robust lore around the fake nation. Social media accounts purporting to be official government channels for Listenbourg have cropped up and they’ve already released a national anthem.

This mask doesn't help anything. It's just a pointless placebo.

Not to be confused with Costa Verde In Fiction. Val Verde is a fictional country or city used by Hollywood writer and producer Steven E. de Souza when his stories require a South- or Central-American locale that will not cause legal or diplomatic problems. The location first appeared in his 1985 film Commando. The name translates as "Green Valley", as "Val" is valley in numerous Latin-based languages (Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, old-fashioned French, Galician and others).

This mask doesn't help anything. It's just a placebo.

I don't want to wear this mask. They're making me wear this!

I don't want to wear this mask. They're making me wear this!

I don't want to wear this mask, but I need to go grocery shopping!

I don't want to wear this mask, but I need to go grocery shopping!

Let me play a tune about a raccoon is a funny possum design for lovers of opossum and raccoons and who love county music and blues

Worn by force, not by fear.

I don't want to wear this mask. They're making me wear this!

I don't want to wear this mask. They're making me wear this!

Worn by force, not by fear.

Johnny Trash

General Gregor MacGregor (24 December 1786 – 4 December 1845) was a Scottish soldier, adventurer, and confidence trickster who attempted from 1821 to 1837 to draw British and French investors and settlers to "Poyais", a fictional Central American territory that he claimed to rule as "Cazique". Hundreds invested their savings in supposed Poyaisian government bonds and land certificates, while about 250 emigrated to MacGregor's invented country in 1822–23 to find only an untouched jungle; more than half of them died. Seen as a contributory factor to the "Panic of 1825", MacGregor's Poyais scheme has been called one of the most brazen confidence tricks in history.