Malaysian social media has been gripped by the antics of an influencer who claimed she went missing while on a quest to capture paranormal activity in an Indonesian jungle, only to emerge days later from a bamboo thicket in a live-streamed high-drama rescue.
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Eyka, a Malaysian TikTok influencer whose beauty tips have attracted 300,000 followers, vanished earlier this week after joining compatriot and YouTube star Ammar Nazhan on a paranormal hunt in the Indonesian city of Bandung.
The forested area was the first place outside Malaysia where Ammar has taken his ghostly content roadshow, which has amassed over 2.7 million followers on his YouTube channel.
The case gripped fans of both personalities throughout the week, with videos posted by Ammar of the frantic search for his co-star pulling in millions of views, including a climactic live stream on Wednesday night showing a weak and bedraggled Eyka being helped out of the jungle by rescuers.
The only problem was that they had faked the entire episode, according to Bandung police, potentially breaching Indonesia’s fake news laws.
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“The sensational content was made purely to increase viewership and followers,” Bandung police chief Kompol Kurnia said on Thursday, according to a report by local Indonesian news portal Kumparan News.