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Did you know that you’re President Barack Obama’s fourth cousin, once removed? If you believe the April Fools prank email alert sent out by the We’re Related Facebook application, then you might as well be related to Obama. The notification email from by We’re Related was sent to 19 million people.
While some have fallen for the prank and others saw right through it, the result remained the same for We’re Related–a major spike in traffic. We’re Related has reported 500,000 unique visits today, which is five times higher than the traffic for this same period on We’re Related’s previous best day, despite it’s ongoing top app status.
But how mean was it to pull such a potentialy personal joke? If any recepients of the prank email click through to see that the alert was sent in good fun, I would hope that they appreciate the humor of today. I find this prank particularly amusing given the probing done by mainstream media into President Obama’s own lineage during the presidential campaign. If we were to take President Obama’s vast family tree into consideration, then the majority of the 19 million email recipients probably are related to our Commander in Chief. We’re all technically related anyway, right?
The success of We’re Related’s little prank also touches on the issue of a Facebook application’s email notifications. Though many of the recipients of today’s prank email are likely international Facebook users, enough users paid attention to the email to make the prank noteworthy. Granted, seeing an alert saying you’re related to the president is far more eye-catching than your average notification email, but the prank proved popular (this year) for We’re Related. See here for some real time Twitter responses to the prank.
Thanks to Jesse Stay for the tip!
This joke was a ton of fun! We will end the day with about 3 million users and about half (1.5 million) will have fallen for it! We also became a trending topic on twitter for several hours today.
Talk about a sick joke.
haha, not funny.
huge mistake….
1. finding possible family is not something you joke with, nor is it something you execute inaccurately. If you’d rather take pride in walloped temporary stardom, versus being known as a 100% non-spammer, then WR did the right thing.
2. WR basically just crippled their possible family repertoire, by putting a sour taste in peoples mouths, by saying hey, i dont know who you are related to so im just going to joke with you and say obama is related to you. Who on earth is going to beleive 100% of the notifications WR will send out after today, regarding possible family?
3. this was a mistake that was realized after the fact, so now they are spawning it as a joke. Lets see. Jokes cannot exist without some percentage of seriousness to them. that is why we laugh, because the joke has something that is real, that we can relate to. No pun intended. =]
4. who piggy backs on the president? are these guys politically adept at all?
This move was purely out of desparation. The company hasnt existed long enough or wide enough to establish an undying trust factor.
5. use another app
HA HA HA..I was more afraid it was a virus trying to get my computer. ran update and scans on Virus protection all morning…Knew it had to be a April 1st joke, but still HAD to look at my facebook account! lolololol..
This was incredibly funny. It looks like a few people didn’t think it was, but the vast majority did! The application has 34 million users, was launched more than a year ago, and is the #4 application on Facebook. Seems like they know their audience quite well: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=obama+cousin
I was like… wtf? I couldn’t figure it out at the time.
Now it makes sense, lol, good joke
I thought it was a virus and spent hours yesterday making sure my computer was safe with scans and updates. I lost a lot of money yesterday due to this and the time it took from my day, as well as peace of mind. Not funny at all. Very immature. Very rude, very stupid. I canceled my facebook account and never intend to return.
I was about to jump into FamilyLink but I am glad I read this blog. It was the very thing that I wanted to avoid so I will not be using this app.