TIFU by deliberately posting a completely fake story to promote my app and realizing how wrong that might be

This actually happened today.

I didn’t ruin anyone’s relationship, and I didn’t directly hurt anyone. But I did something that’s been sitting really uncomfortably with me since, and I haven’t been able to shake it.

I’m working on an app, and honestly, I wanted attention. I wanted it badly. Instead of just explaining what we’re building, I took what felt like the faster route. I wrote a story that was completely made up. Not exaggerated or loosely inspired by something real — just fake. It was extreme and emotional on purpose, designed to make people stop scrolling and react. It looked like a real personal disaster, but it wasn’t real at all.

At first, it worked. People clicked. People reacted. People engaged. For a brief moment, it felt like I’d found something that cut through the noise. Then the tone of the reactions changed.

I got called manipulative. People accused me of fear-mongering. A few comments just said it “read like AI slop.” At the time, that stung. After sitting with it for a bit, I had to admit they weren’t entirely wrong. I’d made a conscious decision to prioritize engagement over honesty.

I told myself it was fine because the app itself is real, and the problem it’s trying to address is real. I assumed that if the goal was good, the method didn’t really matter. Now I’m not so sure that assumption holds up.

I keep going back and forth on this. Is it ever okay to use a completely fake but compelling story to promote something real? Does it matter if you disclose it later, once people have already been emotionally pulled in? Or is this just how the internet works now, and I was naive to think otherwise?

So yeah. If this counts as a fuck-up, that’s it. I chose attention first and only started thinking about trust afterward. I’m not posting this to defend myself. I’m genuinely trying to understand how other people see this, because right now I honestly can’t tell if I crossed a line, or if I just finally noticed where the line actually is.

TL;DR: I deliberately wrote a completely fake, shock-value story to promote an app, got called out and had the post removed, and now I’m questioning whether chasing attention at the expense of trust was a mistake.