Changes

As an April Fools joke in 2009, [[Trent Reznor]] announced an album called ''Strobe Light'', which was replete with humorous song titles and guest collaborators.

To film the shots of lifeless Reznor in the "[[Down In It (song)|Down In It]]" music video, he was covered with cornstarch to create the illusion of decay , and cameras were tied to heavy-duty balloons that were tied downanchored. During the filming of these scenes, one of the balloons broke free and took the camera with it, drifting some 200 miles before being found by a farmer in Michigan. The camera was turned over to local police who, upon seeing the raw video footage, assumed it was a snuff film , and the FBI was called in to investigate. The incident was even reported on ''Hard Copy'' [https://vimeo.com/17037838] and recalled in an interview for ''SPIN'' magazine.

In January 2020, a five-track ''[[With Teeth (halo)#Possible_pre-release_CDs|''With Teeth]]'' "Tentative Sequence" CD ]] (marked as being from late 2004) was sold on eBay by Amoeba Records. Tracks claiming to be from the CD were posted to archive.org the same month , and while the existence of such a CD was verified by [[Rob Sheridan]], the posted tracks were found to be elaborate fakes.[https://www.echoingthesound.org/community/threads/5831-With-Teeth-Tentative-Sequence]

In May 2021, a Memorial Day weekend sale was advertised in the nin.com store, with a note that some new old stock media items had been located and placed up for sale. While there were legitimate media items, two joke items were added and shown as being "sold out": a LaserDisc of "''[[Closure#LaserDisc|Closure]]"'', and a cassette single of "[[Reptile]]". The cassette was even touted as containing the long-fabled unreleased song "[[Just Do It]]". The LaserDisc was, in reality, available for pre-order in 1997 through Trimark, but was canceled.[https://store.nin.com/collections/music][https://www.theninhotline.com/features/news.nin.net/monthly_041998.html]

After the release of the ''[[Watchmen (Music From The HBO Series)]]'' vinyls, [[ETS ]] user katara released a series of elaborately created remixes which were posted to Bandcamp and Soundcloud under the name "thninchnails". This was a shortened and stylized version of The Nine Inch Nails, the "alternate universe" moniker of NIN that was used in the faux packaging presentation on Volume 03 (''The Manhattan Project'') of the aforementioned vinyls. The remixes were done in the style of mid-90s NIN remixes and were released as faux singles for "[[Hurt]]" and "[[Heresy]]", with the "Heresy" artwork being borrowed from the liner notes of ''The Manhattan Project''. A third installment was to come, but never got released.[https://www.echoingthesound.org/community/threads/5917-thninchnails-hurt-(stained)-and-heresy-ep-(fan-made-remixes)]

Another ''Watchmen'' score universe joke came in the form of a fake recording of a 1995 "The Nine Inch Nails" show in Saigon, which was "surfaced" and posted to ninlive.comthe [[NIN Live Archive]]. This was a reference to the storyline of "The Nine Inch Nails" as told in the liner notes of ''The Manhattan Project'' vinyl, with the Saigon show being the last show ever performed. The recording was a file of pure noise, but also contained a folder with a real soundboard recording of the [[2005/12/10_Los_Angeles,_CA|Almost Acoustic Christmas 2005 show]] as a consolation.[https://www.reddit.com/r/nin/comments/ei6bsd/the_nine_inch_nails_live_archive_tnin_april_28/]