Left holding the mayo
Burger King’s Angry Whopper was only the beginning:
As many companies are now doing, they’ve tapped into Facebook and created an application to help promote it. But this Facebook application is a bit … different. Instead of encouraging you to join a group, find new friends, or spread the word, Burger King’s new Whopper Sacrifice Application is offering you a free Whopper if you DE-FRIEND 10 people from your friend list.
What’s more, each of the ex-friends will receive a certification to this effect from BK.
The competition is reportedly working on a more personal dis, tentatively named “McArsenic.”
(Via Mollie Hemingway.)
Dan B »
10 January 2009 · 10:06 am
I’d kick 10 MySpace friends off for a Whopper, but then again I added a bunch of them just to play Mobsters, so it’s not like I actually have any attachment to them.
McGehee »
10 January 2009 · 12:23 pm
I culled my Facebook friends list two months ago, and now they come out with this thing. I think BK hates me.
Hey BK, if you’d open one of your places closer to where I live, you’d get more of my money. Not my fault.
fillyjonk »
10 January 2009 · 5:39 pm
Not on Facebook, not on MySpace. It weirds me out too much when my students ask me if I have a page.
(I probably SHOULD make one, but make it phenomenally boring by social-networking standards: only the most decorous possible pictures of me, and top-ten lists of favorite varieties of tea and Victorian novels).
But the whole friending and de-friending thing – I take stuff like that too literally, and so it has too many echoes of 7th grade for me.
Lisa Paul »
10 January 2009 · 8:54 pm
I’m mystified by the goals of this campaign. Is Burger King striving to make us all fat and friendless? Probably. We’ll be virtual shut-ins without even virtual friends, so we’ll be drowning our sorrows in cholesterol-laden junk food.
CGHill »
10 January 2009 · 9:00 pm
So far as I can tell, BK’s goal here is simply to get access to ten people for every one they can persuade to participate. Anything beyond that should be considered a fringe benefit.
McGehee »
11 January 2009 · 7:04 am
I wonder how many people I’d de-friend for a Klondike Bar?
fillyjonk »
11 January 2009 · 8:15 am
I hadn’t thought of the “access to ten people for every one they can persuade to participate.”
I’d seriously consider de-friending (in real life, even) someone who sold out my e-mail address to yet another company that wants to spam it.
FLAME-BROILED FACEBOOK FRIENDING — TO DE-FRIEND Population Statistic »
12 January 2009 · 7:12 pm
[...] To promote the antisocially-oriented Angry Whopper, Burger King is encouraging overt meanspiritedness among the Facebook crowd by offering up a free Whopper for every 10 people you de-friend. [...]
CGHill »
14 January 2009 · 9:47 pm
Well, Facebook has apparently taken umbrage, and has disabled the Whopper Sacrifice app. BK says 233,906 friends were sacrificed, which you’ll note is not divisible by ten.