No, That Photo Of A Menu From A London Brothel In 1912 Isn't Real

The Internet has the short-term memory of a severely concussed 2-year-old, which means that it falls in love with things it fell in love with just months before. It's like "50 First Dates" if Drew Barrymore watched fail compilations when she woke up every day.

This picture was posted on Reddit in 2010.

While it's been posted on countless sites since then, in the past few days someone decided to repackage it as "A menu from a London Brothel from 1912," which resulted in a number of sites sharing it without doing any actual research.

When you look at the picture, it's easy to understand why it's so popular, but it's also easy to understand why it's fake.

The photo was originally posted on Tumblr, with the author claiming it was taken at a bed and breakfast in New Orleans.

The caption read,

A rather extraordinary menu from Mrs. F.A. Tasse’s 'Capacious Capsulation Parlors' in the collection of my friends at the Block-Keller House, New Orleans.

It should be noted, however, that the name of the brothel's proprietor is essentially "Fat Ass," and the vocabulary makes it seem like it was written by someone who had no idea how people talked in the early 20th century.

Additionally, according to Reddit commenters, analysis of the picture suggests that it was Photoshopped. I couldn't track down the original photos they linked to in the thread, but I tried to replicate the results on my own.

To my understanding, the "rainbow effect" suggests that the text was done on Photoshop, not by a portly typesetter in London around the turn of the century.

If you have any proof to the contrary, I'd love to take a look, but it appears that brothels back then weren't as fun as you probably thought.

Photo Courtesy: Imgur