That’s Philly Mag business editor Jared Shelly and 97.5 Morning Show producer Jamie Lynch both predicting that the HitchBOT thing – which has jumped the shark faster than an asshole dentist with a new harpoon who kills for sport – is an elaborate prank carried out by YouTuber and Philly guy Jesse Wellens, who’s known for… wait for it… playing elaborate pranks.

Wellens was the last known person to see HitchBOT alive, and then all of a sudden the thing turns up destroyed, its untimely death caught on video in surveillance footage that WELLENS OBTAINED and posted to his Snapchat which shows someone in what looks to be a Randall Cunningham jersey kicking it like Michael Bolton kicked the copier in Office Space? Hmm indeed.

It’s all too perfect. Give Shelly and Lynch credit when it proves to be a hoax.

UPDATE: Mmm hmm:

UPDATE 2: Reader Vincent checks in:

You’re definitely right about this being a hoax. I posted this on Reddit Philadelphia comment section that links to your article. There is no security camera where that footage is from. They stood on the pedestal and took the “surveillance” footage themselves. Here’s the Google street view. You can see there is a bench there too. I guess that’s what the Ed Bassmaster (or whoever else pretended to do this) is actually stomping. Additionally, I took a screenshot of the “surveillance” video that you can see in the background he was importing photos from a camera, further suggesting he uploaded that video, edited it in surveillance camera effects and then took a snapchat of it. Ed Bassmaster has a new hoax show on CMT in November…all publicity is good publicity I guess.

Spot the security camera: