One Instagram user is doing God/Jacob The Jeweler’s work and calling out rappers for their fake watches. FakeWatchBusta calls himself “The Horological Batman,” (with horology being the study of watches) and considers himself a bit of a fancy watch expert. He knows everything there is to know about Rolexes, Patek Philippes, Audemars Piguets, and so on, and uses those skills to educate the world on just who might be wearing bogus timepieces. To be fair, these high-profile figures might not know they’re wearing fake watches, something that makes even more sense considering FakeWatchBusta has been served with several cease and desist orders from high-level jewelers, who could be selling these pieces as real.
FWB uses his Instagram to point out differences between the watches in celebrity pictures and the real deals, noting, for example, that Future’s faux-Audemars Piguet has an incorrect “sub-dial configuration” and “the eight is not even close to” where it should be. In an interview with Noisey, FWB noted that Soulja Boy sports a “bad Audemars Piguet quartz fake” with a faulty battery, meaning “it shows the same time in all his pictures.” As he puts it, “It’s 10:25 all day, every day.”
An Audemars Piguet or a Panerai can run anywhere from $4,000 to $800,000.