About

Eroda refers to tourisms ads for an apparent tropical island paradise called Eroda, a place that does not exist. The discovery of the ads on Twitter went viral, leading to speculation on Twitter and Reddit that the ads were perhaps a promotional Alternate Reality Campaign for a video game or a front for criminal activity. As researchers dug deeper, it was popularly theorized that Eroda was perhaps a promotional ARG for pop singer Harry Styles.

Origin

On November 21st, 2019, Twitter user @TheBrotographer^[1] reported that he had been seeing ads for a place called "Eroda." However, after investigating further, he realized Eroda does not exist (tweets shown below).

Austin @TheBrotographer hi so i just got an ad on twitter for a place that, as far as i can tell, straight up DOES NOT EXIST (thread) 4:51 PM Nov 21, 2019 Twitter for iPhone 46.1K Likes 11.7K Retweets @TheBrotographer Nov 21 Austin Replying to @TheBrotographer i was scrolling through twitter and this ad popped up and y'all know i love looking at pretty pictures of places i can't afford to visit so i decided to take the bait and check out this place i had never heard of visiteroda @visiteroda Watch the sun rise from your bedroom window from Eroda's largest town and port ERODA Land Gnte Like

Spread

The tweets led to interest from Twitter users and Redditors. User @phuckas tweeted that they were "freaking out," feeling like they'd stumbled into an "ARG" (shown below, left). User @hardliqeur tweeted it's "the craziest thing" (shown below, right).

phuckfas @phuckfas I'm freaking out right now I think I stumbled into an ARG or something 6:42 AM Nov 21, 2019 Twitter for iPhone

anna LOVES harry | 18 @hardliqueur this eroda thing is about the craziest s--- I've ever heard y'all say but,, I'll put my clown shoes on 5:33 PM Nov 24, 2019 Twitter for iPhone

On Reddit, a subreddit devoted to the mystery started immediately, gaining over 1,600 subscribers in two days.^[2] The subreddit noticed some odd phrasings on the site's website.^[3] for example, under the "attractions" tab on the website, the description for "The Fisherman's Pub" reads, "Located on the corner of Cherry Street and Golden Way. The only rule of the bar? Don’t mention a pig in the pub." On YouTube, two days after Brotographer's thread, a video showing a tourism ad for "Eroda" was posted (shown below).

Harry Styles Speculation

Meanwhile, Twitter users began to believe that "Eroda" was connected to pop singer Harry Styles, who has a song called "Adore You" on his upcoming album ("Eroda" is "Adore" spelled backwards). Twitter user kissythetimes^[4] tweeted conjecture and evidence supporting the theory. For example, some of the pictures on the Eroda website are of places in Scotland where Styles was shooting a music video in August. Also, locations on the island such as "Golden Way" and "Cherry Street" may be related to other songs on the album "Golden" and "Cherry." TheBrotographer discovered that Eroda ads that appeared on Facebook were being targeted to people who had visited Harry Styles' website (shown below, left). Twitter user @ryannoyance^[6] posted a video demonstrating the connection (shown below, right). CapitalFM^[5] dove into the connections between Styles and Eroda.