Hopkin Green Frog?

Hopkin Green Frog from my research is (to kinda quote what I read) an internet hype that was created around 2004. It seems to all stem from a flyer put up around Seattle by an autistic 16 year old who lost his McDonald's green frog and wanted to find it. From what I can understand someone saw the flyers and created a site called lostfrog.org in hopes of finding this lost toy. Then this one site led to another site and so on. One of the sites I found was published by a writer from the Seattle area who wanted to write about the missing frog in a local newspaper. He contacted the family and spoke with the father who claimed that no one else had contacted them about the frog and that he wanted the issue dropped. Further research done by the writer found that 'supposedly' different family members have spoke to people inquiring about the toy, but that because the family did not speak English well stories varied.
My thoughts about this story is that the Internet can definitely be a scary thing. Things that are published are as bad a middle school gossip. Stories get told and re-told and the truth gets lost somewhere in the retelling. It reminds me of the forwards you get that say for every person you forward this email to Microsoft will donate $1.00 to some needy family.
Basically, you cannot believe everything you hear or read.