Yes, that used to be a common misconception in Korea until recently. It is completely false but such rumors can get viral very quickly. There are also many such misonceptions in the West. For instance, in the West, many people still believe that different areas of the tongues are used for different tastes (sweet, bitter,...). You can find more such things in this famous wikipedia article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconception...

Yes, we did until 5 to 10 years ago. Not anymore. Some incorrect information from TV made people believe like that from maybe 70s.

edit: What really happened was, some very old people died because of hypothermia by fan when the fan was just introduced in South Korean market. At that time, no one knew about hypothermia so people believed it was suffocation. That became the urban myth.

Just remember: in low gravity, always sleep with a fan on or you can die of suffocation. Just in case that ever comes up, you know.

>Do people actually think they'll die if they sleep with the fan on? Thats pretty weird to me.

There are people that legitimately believe Earth is flat.

For something less crazy, people were wearing surgical masks in photos of the California fires the past few weeks. They are wholly ineffective, a proper respirator with the appropriate filter is needed to make any impact on the air quality.

More oft than not people will readily accept something as fact without questioning it at all. There are countless YouTube videos that prey upon this, like the 'DIY drone phone case' and the videos with people alleging 'make diamonds with peanut butter and coal'.

That's a German thing too.