Pranks on facebook and twitter

A few examples of how to prank people on social media.

As I've mentioned before on my blog I'm a big fan of pranks, but the prank has to be good natured otherwise it ceases to be a funny prank and instead becomes a sly trick. So with that in mind, here's another batch or pranks (or sly tricks, depending on your point of view), but this time featuring pranks and tricks with a facebook and twitter theme...

1) My breath smells of farts!

Like this photo if you have camel breath.

This first example is a funny trick you can play on facebook which will make your friends feel a bit embarrassed. First of all post a status which is happy news or a positive comment or basically something which is likely to get as many likes as possible from your friends.

Then once a load of friends have liked your status, edit your status to say something completely different, such as:

"Like this status if your breath smells of farts!"

So then it will appear as if all the friends who liked your original comment have clicked 'like' to indicate that their breath smells of farts.

If you don't want to post something childish like this on your own facebook page then you can also do the same trick by replying to someone else's status with a comment which is designed to get lots of likes, and then later editing your comment to something embarrassing.

Funny prank or sly trick?

2) Secret baldness exposed

The secret's out...  Charles Fudgemuffin wears a wig.

If you're a regular user of twitter then you probably know about the option to set up lists. Lists are useful if you want to have a variety of themed streams available to view, but they're also useful if you want to play daft tricks on random people.

First, set up an embarassingly named list such as:

'People who are secretly bald but who hide their baldness by wearing a wig made of recycled coconut hair.'

Next add random people to the list and they'll receive a message in their notifications stream saying, "You've been added to the list, 'People who are secretly bald but who hide their baldness by wearing a wig made of recycled coconut hair.'"

Twitter lets you add anyone to a list, but just to be on the safe side it would probably be wise to only add friends who would realise it's just a joke. It might also be wise to add a disclaimer in the list description saying something like, 'Please note, the people on this list aren't really bald and don't really wear wigs made out of coconut hair. It's just a trick.' 

Funny prank or sly trick?

3) Another freezing winter

Snow predicted for October.

One trick which you can play on facebook is to post a link to a really old news story about the weather, and then add a comment pretending that it's totally recent. So for example in late September you could post a comment such as 'Temperatures set to plummet..." and then post a link to the following story which predicts snow in October:

Snow predicted for October

Of course, the story actually relates to October 2011 but the date doesn't show up in the link, so when your friends see the headline they'll think, "Oh, no. Snow in October! What a gutter!"

Funny prank or sly trick?

4) Dreams come true and broken hearts

Your wish has come true! Or has it?

This next example is a trick which several sly people played on Justin Bieber's twitter followers a couple of years back on April Fools' Day.

First of all, they downloaded Justin Bieber's current twitter photo, then uploaded it to their own account. They also changed their account name to Justin Bieber, so that at a quick glance their account would appear very much like the genuine Justin Bieber's twitter account.

Next, they retweeted random comments by Justin Bieber fans, and of course these fans thought that their life's dream had come true and they'd just been retweeted by Justin Bieber. Later on though, the Justin Bieber fans would eventually realise that their dreams hadn't come true after all and it was just a sneaky prank which had probably broken their hearts.

Funny prank or sly trick?

5) Mirror image self

A recreation of what my own mirror image profile photo might look like.

This final trick involves a lot of effort so I've never done it myself, but when I've seen it done by others it made me laugh at the sheer weirdness of it.

First, search for other facebook users with the same name as yourself and then pick out the person with the most distinctive profile photo. Next, recreate their profile photo, i.e. wear similar clothes and position yourself in the same pose, and then upload this imitation profile photo to your own profile.

The final step is then to add your namesake as a friend and then chuckle to yourself as they presumably freak out when they find a friend request from their namesake and apparent mirror image self with an almost identical profile photo.

Funny prank or sly trick?


- - - - - - - - - -


My own opinion is that the prank on Justin Bieber fans was definitely crossing the line and entering into the realms of a sly trick. It was probably just intended as a bit of a laugh, but it's definitely a bit cruel to mess with the feelings of impressionable young kids. The other four pranks though are open for debate.

You can find more pranks (or sly tricks, depending on your point of view), below:
Funny prank or sly trick