{"id":175487,"date":"2021-02-05T20:27:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-06T01:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2021\/02\/05\/this-is-a-great-prank\/"},"modified":"2021-02-05T20:27:00","modified_gmt":"2021-02-06T01:27:00","slug":"this-is-a-great-prank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2021\/02\/05\/this-is-a-great-prank\/","title":{"rendered":"This is a Great Prank"},"content":{"rendered":"
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You can now get a Verified Badge crest on your Bay Area home if you’re an influencer, public figure, or represent a brand. https:\/\/t.co\/SyoURdSGe7<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/H1Sz3gwBdL<\/a> <\/p>\n

\u2014 Writer for Black Mirror (@djbaskin) January 30, 2021<\/a> <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Truly Sublime<\/i><\/div>\n

An artist in San Francisco had a tweet go viral where she offered “Blue Check” plaques to be placed on the homes of “Influencers” in an obvious reference to the Twitter program<\/a>. <\/p>\n

I am not surprised that it went viral, but I am surprised  that some people actually thought it was real, and made an application for approval.*<\/sup><\/p>\n

On Friday, a viral Twitter thread<\/a> announced the unexpected rollout of \u201cBlue Check Homes<\/a>\u201d \u2014 a new service allowing Bay Area residents to apply to have a \u201cVerified Badge crest\u201d (read: blue check mark) installed on the facade of their homes to essentially identify themselves as an authentic public figure in real life. <\/p>\n

In a matter of hours, the thread garnered international attention, swiftly amassing thousands of retweets and likes, and over 40 million impressions. The reactions from the public were wide-ranging. Some were, understandably, annoyed by the concept. Others caught onto the joke rather quickly. <\/p>\n

But Danielle Baskin<\/a>, the SF-based artist behind the prank, had no idea the website she crafted to back up the fake service would receive 495 applicants, all hoping for a crest of their own.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will say a percentage of them are not from a real person. People added, like, Kim Kardashian, and that was clearly a joke,\u201d said Baskin, who in 2019 attempted to remove a series of controversial “anti-homeless boulders”<\/a> from a city sidewalk by listing them on the Craigslist free section. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut everyone else thought the website was real. I did what I thought was a mediocre Photoshop job \u2026 I thought, \u2018This is all very clickbait-y.\u2019 All of the copy, I thought, was so obviously satire.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Until 2\u00bd weeks ago, Donald John Trump was President.<\/p>\n

There is no such thing as “Obvious Satire” anymore.<\/p>\n

*<\/sup>Full disclosure, I went to the website and submitted Joe biden for sh%$s and giggles.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You can now get a Verified Badge crest on your Bay Area home if you’re an influencer, public figure, or represent a brand. https:\/\/t.co\/SyoURdSGe7 pic.twitter.com\/H1Sz3gwBdL \u2014 Writer for Black Mirror (@djbaskin) January 30, 2021 Truly Sublime An artist in San Francisco had a tweet go viral where she offered “Blue Check” plaques to be placed …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[386,367,583,584],"class_list":["post-175487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-humor","tag-internet","tag-practical-jokes","tag-win"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175487"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175487\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}