If you were on Twitter over the course of the weekend, then you probably saw at least one tweet from a Hong Kong McDonald’s branch claiming it wanted to die.
The unverified account seems to be part of a long-con hoax that paid off for about 24 hours before McDonald’s came to shut down the fun.
No ad to show here.
It all started in October last year, when @Mc_DonaldsHK tweeted about the new McSpicy Chicken Filet meal. It then updated sporadically with other promotions, like a genuine account would.
The account eventually hit its target in May. The verified @McDonaldsCorp tagged the fake Hong Kong account in a tweet about cheesecake — and the prankster was not about to let the moment pass.
“This bitch freakin out about cheesecake while kids out here McDying [sic],” they tweeted.
They then went back to regular posting, slowly integrating more joke tweets.
“Where is my son? They took my son,” read one. “I want to quit. She left me,” another.
The tweets racked up over 40 000 likes apiece. The most popular got over 63 000 likes and 38 000 retweets.
Rapper Hoodie Allen chimed in that he was enjoying the strange account.
this is my favorite twitter account
— Hoodie Allen (@HoodieAllen) July 30, 2017
“I hate your music,” they replied.
Twitter revelled in the chaos, but the joy was short lived: by Sunday morning, the account’s name and bio were changed to clearly show it was a parody. Not long after, it was gone for good.
But fear not: the internet is written in ink.
mcdonalds hong kong: you are a legend pic.twitter.com/UMFga10lqM
— just madi (@brbdaddy) July 30, 2017
is this guy who runs the hong kong mcdonalds twitter ok pic.twitter.com/3XulCgruXw
— 氷雨 @ New Reci-Bee (@princesstooru) July 29, 2017
Some wondered if the entire incident was merely a viral marketing stunt, but McDonalds confirmed with Gizmodo that it was not.
I hope the seven-month-long con was worth it.
