Alan McMasters: Why You Shouldn’t Trust Wikipedia

A few years ago if you searched up “Who was the inventor of the toaster”, you would be met with the search result “Alan MacMaster”. But what if I told you that this was all fake, and two college students fooled newspapers, teachers and even the bank of England!

In 2012, an aerospace engineering student by the name of Alan MacMaster was sitting in his first day of classes. The professor was warning them not to use Wikipedia as a source, since anyone can edit it. Stating that his friend Maddy Kennedy had falsely edited the Wikipedia article about toaster claiming that he was the inventor. After that class, his friends looked over the Wikipedia page about toasters and Alan’s friend Alex changed the name of the inventor to Alan MacMasters. Claiming he invented the toaster in Edinburgh Scotland.  

But soon they forgot about it, that was until the Daily Mirror praised Alan MacMaster for his revolutionary invention of the toaster. Then the two students wondered how far they could take this. 

Alan’s friend Alex then created an entirely new page for the supposed inventor of the toaster. So in February of 2013 Alex created the Alan MacMasters Wikipedia page. To make the page seem more reliable he uploaded an edited photo of himself made to look like it was taken in the 1800s. But soon many credible books and news sources started listing Alan MacMasters as the official inventor of the electric toaster. So over the next few years Alex continued to edit the Wikipedia article adding new made up information. 

Soon the name Alan MacMasters became fact. More than a dozen books listed him as the inventor of the toaster. Scotland’s official government listed his contributions as proof of Scotland’s innovative spirit. One Scottish primary school even organized a whole day in his memory. Where children would write journal entries about him, and paint slices of toast and build pretend toasters. The prank even fooled the Bank of England, who in 2018 asked the public who should be put on the new 50 pound bill and MacMasters was nominated along with 988 other legitimate contenders who’d made significant contributions to science and technology. 

But all good things must come to an end. In July of 2022 a teenager from Kent finally exposed the hoax. Adam, a 15 year old student became suspicious of the article after his teacher mentioned the inventor in class. When he went to the Wikipedia article and looked at the photo of the inventor. He thought it looked fake and photoshopped. After doing some digging and finding out that it was photoshopped, he went to Reddit where he created a post that stated “The picture of the inventor of the toaster on Wikipedia was faked”. Quickly, this accusation was spread throughout the forum and Wikipedia. Within 24 hours the article was voted to be taken down and Alex’s Wikipedia account was banned. 

Overall this is a textbook case of circular reporting. When someone puts something fake on Wikipedia, then a journalist uses it without fact checking it. Then that becomes a source for the claim the person made earlier. So who’s the real inventor of the toaster? Well there were many people who contributed to the invention of the toaster but most notably Charles Strite created the first pop-up toaster in 1919. Or at least that’s what it says on Wikipedia. 

Bibliography:

• “The Weirdest Hoax on the Internet”. Youtube. July 14, 2024. Accessed April 25, 2026

• “Alan MacMasters Hoax”. Wikipedia. Accessed April 25, 2026 

• “Toaster”. Wikipedia. Accessed April 25, 2026 

• “Alan MacMasters: How the great online toaster hoax was exposed”. November 18, 2022. Accessed April 25, 2026