If several Western media outlets are to be believed, there's a new trend in China where teens have started to take heads of cabbage on walks on leashes to combat loneliness and depression.
"I have more interest for my cabbage than I do my parents. I feel it understands me," the Huffington Post quoted a Chinese teen as saying in an article published earlier this month.
"I feel I can transfer my negative thoughts about myself to the cabbage, go for a walk with it and come home feeling better about myself," the website quotes another Chinese teen as saying.
The only problem, however, is that it isn't true -- not all of it, anyway.
Indeed, Chinese teens have been spotted walking around the streets of Beijing lugging heads of cabbage behind them on leashes.
But it isn't new, it isn't a 'trend,' and it has nothing to do with combating loneliness.
Rather, it's part of a performance art piece by Chinese artist Han Bing that was unveiled at the Beijing music festival.
Bing explains he has been working with produce, as well as other inanimate objects, since 2000.
"Originally, I intended for walking the cabbage to have no meaning," Bing said. "I was only trying to encourage freedom, and to get people to question their daily activities."
Upon discovering that cabbage walking was neither new, nor a 'trend', the Huffington Post ran a correction to its original story written by blogger Hilary Hanson.
"It's unclear whether the teens really saw some therapeutic benefit to the cabbage walking, or they were just messing with reporters," the correction states.