The Greatest Day in the History of the Internet
It’s Memorial Day weekend in the United States, a time of reflection, prayer, and remembrance. Which makes me think of the most epic battle I’ve fought in my lifetime—against my brother-in-law—which led to the greatest day I’ve ever experienced on the internet.
My brother-in-law—we call him Vibes—is from the soft terrain of the Bay Area where hippies are hella plentiful and misplaced passion for the Warriors, Giants, and Niners borders on mental illness. I’m from Southern California where pride in the Lakers, Dodgers, and Kings is entirely reasonable.
We were playing in a fantasy basketball league, and on the week we went head-to-head, we had no choice but to make it interesting. Money? Meh. Boring. We wanted something bloodthirsty, something with real stakes, something that would define our implicit birthright-driven rivalry, and we eventually landed on this:
Loser must yield his Facebook password for 24 hours.
Side note: Once upon a time, social media wasn’t just political polarity. It wasn’t the cyber equivalent of fentanyl. And it wasn’t the digital incarnation of a prison riot. It was fun and silly, and I believe our high-stakes fantasy basketball bet was the high water mark of all that social media could be.
You could probably guess that I won that week of fantasy basketball (after all, history is written by the winners) and despite Vibes’ innate Bay Area character flaw, he handed his password over, no questions asked.
The fantasy week ended on a Sunday, and that meant I took over the account on a Monday. This might have presented challenges for most people who had to balance the Facebook hijacking with the requirements of work. At the time, though, I taught a college-level freshman English Composition class, and I felt it prudent to conduct a little review of brainstorming methods.
“First thing you gotta do,” a student said, “is update his profile pic.”
Great idea. Vibes is a handsome guy, often compared to Tom Brady. Probably more like the Tom Brady who lost Gisele than the Tom Brady who got Gisele, but still Tom Brady. Fortunately, the previous summer on our family vacay, Vibes had a little fun shaving and sported a pencil-thin mustache, and we got a shot of him shirtless and sprawled out on the sofa as if it was a fainting couch. He went from Tom-Brady energy to Jared-from-Subway energy pretty damn quickly.
Vibes is also a teacher, so I knew we were onto something when one of his students replied to the profile pic, “OMG! Mr. Marshall? This is the greatest day ever!” Yes, young lady. Yes, it was.
The next item on the brainstorm involved some adjustments to Vibes’ communities and likes. My students asked, “What does this Vibes character hate?” That was an easy one. Feet. He hates feet. I’m with him on this, by the way. The last thing I need in my life are images of toe cleavage or yabba-dabba-do dogs. I mean, any reasonable person should conclude that the majority of feet need Jesus. Can I get an amen?
So naturally, we added him to as many foot fetish groups as we possibly could. And here’s the thing we’ve learned about foot fetish groups. They’re like athlete’s foot—they flare up and then they go dormant, and then they flare back up again. To this day, nearly a decade later, Vibes still sees new posts from some of these communities of which he is part. He can unlike and un-join all he wants, but they continue to feature their hairy toe knuckles in his feed. I can’t tell you how much that warms my heart.
Speaking of hairy toe knuckles, I really wanted to stick it to Vibes and his Bay Area buddies, so I wrote up a post that said something to this effect: “That’s it! I’ve had it with the Giants’ nonsense. I’m jumping off this Norcal bandwagon.” And then I launched and made him the administrator of a Facebook Group called “Norcal for Dodgers!” and adjusted his wallpaper to advertise as much.
Say what you will about those Bay Area hippies, you wear a Dodgers jersey in San Francisco, you better be prepared to brandish a switch blade and fight for your life. I only mention this because some of Vibes’ Facebook friends’ comments were akin to what you would hear if a member of MS-13 was trying to get out of the gang. It took Vibes a little while to convince his cronies that I was behind the shenanigans, which should give you some idea as to the collective IQ of Giants fans.
Next, and probably the most clever move of the day, I changed Vibes’ birthday to a few weeks from the day of the Facebook hijacking. When the day was over, Vibes’ wife, my sister-in-law, went into the settings to undo all the damage, but she missed this one. In fact, she probably didn’t even consider it.
So a few weeks after I returned Vibes’ page, he received a whole bunch of happy birthday messages, which was great because it was like I found a loophole, an inadvertent way to extend 24 hours. Not that getting wished happy birthday is a bad thing, but I imagine Vibes had to explain to many, many people how, ya know, I whooped his ass at fantasy basketball and then turned his social media presence into an episode of South Park.
One of the agreements we made—and really it could have gone unspoken—was that, win or lose, neither of us would post any thing racist or homophobic or really anything mean spirited that would permanently tarnish the other’s reputation. As it turned out, it was actually a gay member of our family who realized what was happening and then made a post to Vibes’ page, essentially volunteering Vibes as the Grand Marshall of a gay pride parade. And this was one of the refreshing realizations of such an undertaking—taking the piss out of your brother-in-law online can be a beautiful act of inclusive, collaborative tolerance.
We followed this up with a string of the kind of posts that drive a guy like Vibes’ mad, things that he would never in a million years post.
Feeling sad…
Could really use a hug today…
My favorite musical is Mamma Mia. What’s yours?
Does anyone need a foot rub because I need the practice.
At one point, I received a text from Vibes. It read, “I hate you, Norm.” This was good. Even the brightest, most talented men need a little validation every so often.
One of my C students bumped up to a solid B+ after he made the suggestion of sending out invitations. Sure, our fantasy bet wasn’t for money, but why couldn’t it be? So I put together a little invite, did some research on Vibes’ Facebook friends who lived within a driving vicinity, and invited them to a filet mignon and lobster dinner the following day. Unfortunately, none of them showed, so this didn’t pan out as well as we’d hoped, but still, I think this one was spot-on in terms of spirit.
Speaking of spirits, their pug Brody had passed away a few months prior, and I am a sucker for gallows humor, so I wrote up a post that expressed the collective grief of Vibes, his wife, and his children. I followed that with a desire to heal their grief with new life, preferably the kind that meows. This post had legs. In the form of kittens. Offers for stray cats came through hard and fast. Apparently, nobody in the Bay Area listens to the advice of the late great Bob Barker.
The kitten gag led to the next gag, something cagey that was sure to give some family members pause. I wrote it up quick and hit post: “My wife and I have some big news on the way. Stay tuned…” Vibes, like me at the time, was at a prime child-rearing age, so you can imagine how some members of his family reacted to this post. But you don’t have to imagine. I’ll tell you. His mom responded within minutes: “Call me. NOW!”
I may have taken that one too far. To be fair, I pranked my own mother similarly. I gave this toast at her 50th birthday: “Mom, I thought the best gift I could give you for this milestone would be a grandbaby…” And as the room filled with gasps, I continued, “But you’re much too young to be a grandma, so we got you a juicer…” I’m sure I’ll massage Satan’s feet in hell for this one.
The last noteworthy moment of Vibes’ Facebook hijacking involved books. Vibes started something he called Man Book Club, a counterpoint to his own wife’s book club. The first rule of Man Book Club is this: There is to be no reading in Man Book Club. The majority of Man Book Club concerns, as far as I know, the imbibing of vast quantities of clear and/or brown spirits and wolfing down any number of smoked meats (pretty sure that last one is not a euphemism… can’t say for sure…).
I figured it was a moral imperative to introduce Vibes to the possibilities of the literary landscape, so I liked author pages on Facebook whose book covers featured Fabio in various stages of undress, in miscellaneous erotic contexts—medieval, colonial, Amish, etc. You might be surprised to know that Vibes’ Man Book Club now reads and discusses the following: feelings, foreplay, romantic tension, and the transformative power of love in epic narrative arcs.
The next day I surrendered Vibes’ Facebook back to him. Ask him, and he’ll tell you—this was the most fun he’s ever had on social media. Never mind his Bay Area flaws, he’s a pretty solid guy with a great sense of humor. If someone wrote up a Facebook post that said, “Vibes is helluva sport,” I would hit the like button. Of course, I would comment, “Suck it, Draymond Green. Go Lakers!” But yeah, I would definitely hit that like button.
Thanks for reading. If you liked this subtle balance of chaos and fun-loving charm, consider reading some of my other posts, like:
Manslaughter, Santa Claus, and a Hatchet, in which I attempt to create my own holiday tradition that goes absolutely sideways. Or…
The Finger, a story about how teenaged boys handled dismemberment in a the pre-cellphone days of old. Or…
Parenting, Pranks, and Pappo, a tribute to my dad who is to pranking as Picasso is to painting. Or…
Marriage Boot Camp, an archive of my wife’s crazy-making across Europe. Or… if you’re in the market for some light reading about dark characters making bad decisions, consider picking up my new dark crime comedy novella, Dig.
Very creative, love it!
OMG, and I thought my brother was a problem. He was an angel.