Harry Styles fans subject of “Face Swap” hoax

A photo and video purportedly showing One Direction singer Harry Styles with short hair have turned out to be a hoax using digital face swapping software.

We probably don’t need to tell most of you that One Direction are one of the biggest boy bands on the planet right now, with legions of millions of social-media frequenting fans.

And in the world of boy band hysteria and “fandom”, when a singer announces he’s cutting his trademark long hair, it’s news that going to get plenty of attention on websites like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

This is exactly what Harry Styles announced not long ago, claiming he will be donating his cut locks to charity. This inevitably led to plenty of speculation as to what the One Direction singer looks like now.

And when a photo (below) apparently of the singer surfaced online, is was shared prolifically, even by many other celebrities.

However all is not as it seems. It appears the photo of a short haired Harry Styles is actually the result of digital manipulation software that “face swaps” the facial features of one person onto the head of another.

This type of software has been available for a number of years and has surged in popularity after mobile apps like SnapChat utilised this type of feature.

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A video apparently of Harry Styles also appears to (more obviously) have used this type of digital manipulation.

Both the photo and video were uploaded onto the Internet by a man named Ellis Lacy (“Harry Styles” thanks Lacy in the video.) Lacy later tweeted “I feel like I have pulled wool over the worlds eyes”.

And the final nail in the coffin of this hoax is that the image of Styles used in the face swap is below.

This hoax has been busted.