“Before 2019” seems like a safe bet for pre-LLM years… but let’s see.
The nerve gas report used to justify the invasion of Iraq was ripped from a scene in the Nicholas cage/sean Connery movie The Rock.
Those clown sightings from 2016.
90% of vine videos.
There was a video of an Howl/Eagle flying off with a baby, it was an hoax but it was watched all around the world
Now something like that would be laugh at and label AI generated
The moon landing already is already a conspiracy theory, so that? Or if reported from reputable sources it might just be the same conspiracy theorists dismissing it.
Let’s see… The English army made blow up tanks to fake their power. The French made a second Paris to confuse pilots. The military were very upset when the first spam email was sent. This one is debated but the story is ibm choose ms-dos as their os because the owner of their first choice was out flying his plane when they went to make the deal so they went with their second choice bill gates. Apple was failing, they fired Steve jobs, Steve then made a different company, couple years later Steve was rehired by Apple and made the initial ipod.

