The Newlywedsontjob Interview: AnonBestman Speaks – Exclusive
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It’s arguably the finest best man prank that’s ever been played. An anonymous best man takes advantage of his friend’s honeymoon to hook up the newlyweds’ bed so that it tweets everytime there’s some action. The account has picked up over 22k followers and it’s been featured on Mashable, Gizmodo, 140char, Tweetmeme, TechCrunch, Huffington Post, Daily Mail, DiggTV, Marie Claire, Washington Post, Digg and Reddit. Eventually, even Staggered got in on the act, so it must have been a big story.
In fact, we did a little more than that – by the clever journalistic trick of sending a deluge of direct messages to anonbestman and offering a cheeky little sponsorship deal, we managed to get some exposure off the back of it, which just goes to show you how being annoying pays off in the end. One of our conditions was that we made anonbestman promise that when he was ready to reveal the gag to the newlyweds he had to let us know first…
STAGGERED: First off, what have you made of the coverage that your prank has got?
ANONBESTMAN: I shat myself! I don’t use Twitter all that much and I work away a fair bit so it was a while before I even checked the account again. I think there was about 4,000 followers and when I googled it, it was on the front page of Digg and I just sat and caned about 15 cigarettes trying to calm down.
STAGGERED: Surely, that was a good thing though – you wanted it to be noticed – that’s what makes it such a big stag prank.
ANONBESTMAN: Yeah, but I thought 100 people might log onto it or something, I really didn’t think tens of thousands of people would be interested. I should have guessed there’s a lot of perverts out there :) A few of my mates who helped me set it up know about it and they’ve been pissing themselves for the last couple of months. I must admit I’ve been cacking myself about telling him.
STAGGERED: So when are you going to tell him?
ANONBESTMAN: After talking it over with the boys, we reckon it’d be a nice surprise to do it on his birthday, 26th Feb.
STAGGERED: Any ideas how you’ll do it – our suggestion is that you do a live video feed, which we’d be more than happy to host, we won’t even charge you.
ANONBESTMAN: That’s good of you! As it stands, the fact that no one knows who they are and that I can soften the blow by buying him a massive birthday present with the sponsorship money is probably all that stands between me and death.
STAGGERED: You can’t deny thousands of people the chance to see how this ends.
ANONBESTMAN: We’ll see. I’m sure I can figure something out.
STAGGERED: Since this all began we’ve been wondering what he did to you when he was your best man – you talked about this being sweet revenge?
ANONBESTMAN: There were a few things! The worst is he pushed me into the sea off a pier.
STAGGERED: That’s it?
ANONBESTMAN: It was a big pier!
STAGGERED: How do you think his Mrs will react?
ANONBESTMAN: I think they’ll both have a laugh over it. I hope they do anyway.
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So that’s it – 26th Feb is officially the big day. If you want to keep up-to-date then don’t forget to sign up to our newsletter using the grey box on the right.
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Absolutely crazy!! I use Tweetdeck at work and have been following this phenomena since the launch. Every day there’s new mentions, and #FollowFriday still has it going round in circles.
I don’t know how I would break something of this scale on a birthday. Just don’t tell him whilst standing at the end of a pier!
how on earth have they not discovered the device? Do they not look under the bed??? Have they not changed bedding, or turned the mattress!! Im a house wife gone mad!! LOL.
On another note, im glad my husbands best men didnt pull anything like this back in june when we tied the knot…. just off to check under the bed again.
I nominate @newlywedsontjob for a Shorty Award in #advertising because… he just might be a very sneaky viral mktg ploy by some creative folks at a new online magazine? http://bit.ly/shorty ^.^
I love this, it’s a much needed bit of fun in these days and ages. One thing I have noticed is the weight slowly creeping up each time which in turn begs the question… Pregnant or too much wedding cake? LOL
I’ve wondered the same thing as Nicola. How do they not see the device when they are changing the bedding?
I think this is an amazing prank. I hope we eventually learn how this device works. I can’t wait to read about the outcome of the prank revealed!
You know what I think the wife will be most upset about? The weight factor. The couple started off weighing in at 151kg and I think last I saw they were up to about 155kg. I know I’d be horrified if someone was tweeting my weight (even though we have no idea how much is her and how much is her husband).
I thought it was incredibly geeky to be wondering how the measuring equipment could be positioned so it wasn’t discovered. Seems it’s more of a housewifely thing. Which I guess is good?
I wonder would somebody be kind enough to graph the activity into a nice visualisation of variance of weight, intensity, time of day etc.
I’m with Kate, I’d be upset about the weight thing. I’d also be embarrassed at the lack of sex they’ve been having! Although, I suppose there are planty of places to get jiggy besides the bed…
This must be an older couple. They don’t do it more than a couple of times a week and the sessions never last more than about 20 minutes. LOL
[...] Interview with @newlywedsontjob – staggered [...]
[...] an interview with Staggered, the anon best man has said that he will tell the bride and groom about the prank on [...]
Delighted to hear that it’s all going to come out. Was discussing recently with someone about how it would end. Would the anon best man make it public or not? Would we ever find out how it ends? And when? Hopefully the best man won’t be tipped off by the mention of his birthday. A brilliant gag which has really raised the bar! And well done to Staggered for your persistence :)
I hope the bestman’s life insurace is paid up to date. I fear for his well being when the wife finds out. Amazing prank!!!
So we do have the wedding date (Dec. 9th) and his birthday (26. Feb). So chances are big to find out who it is. I guess all their friends and family already know. This time it will be a very big pier, and no help offered. In Italy they’d add some concrete shoes. ;-)
I thought the increasing weight was funny, too
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[...] To view the exclusive interview with Anon Bestman please visit:http://www.iamstaggered.com/featured/the-newlywedsontjob-interview-anonbestman-speaks-exclusive. [...]
[...] To view the exclusive interview with Anon Bestman please visit:http://www.iamstaggered.com/featured/the-newlywedsontjob-interview-anonbestman-speaks-exclusive. [...]
[...] To view the exclusive interview with Anon Bestman please visit:http://www.iamstaggered.com/featured/the-newlywedsontjob-interview-anonbestman-speaks-exclusive. [...]
[...] To view the exclusive interview with Anon Bestman please visit:http://www.iamstaggered.com/featured/the-newlywedsontjob-interview-anonbestman-speaks-exclusive. [...]
Okay… for everyone wondering how the device works and how to hide it properly…
(I do not know anonBestman, therefore I do not know how he did this. this is one possible solution)
First of all, the contraption:
You need a multi-axis accelerometer (see wikipedia for further reading). This device measures amongst others vibration and shock. The output is run through a microcontroller that does the rest of the job. You can “teach” the microcontroller to record only if the accelerometer senses continuous vibration/shock for at least 30 seconds. This is for discarding movement during sleep. After this “check” is done, tweet it.
Now the fun part, hiding it:
The accelerometer is about 1/4 inches wide, about the same in length and 1/16 of an inch thick. A microcontroller is about twice as big if you get a “mini” one. The board on which you place these will be about 1×1 inches. The thickness of the whole device is at most 1/4 inches.
All the movement on the bed will shake the bed entirely. This means you can place this anywhere as long as it is in direct contact with the bed. Maybe on the back of the headpiece?
Just now the weight was wrong… from 156 to 101 kg? Last job was 16 hours ago, no way they had a baby and went right back to work.
What gives? So how does it measure weight being only an accelerometer?
I’ve been waiting for the weight to change significantly, indicating a cheat, but the only way the weight would drop this far is if the wife is already very thin, and whoever she’s cheating with is just as thin…
Or it’s just some weird hardware failure, or altogether a hoax. Either way, i’m on the edge of my seat!
I was thinking that the weight drop could be bent over the bed? Just a thought. And to any comment about them not having sex often… that’s just their bed… there are a lot of other places to have sex in a house/apartment.
I think that its all been discovered- and anonBestman may indeed be killed by the bride My twitter shows action commenced about 10+ hours ago… greatly reduced weight hmmm have we all been scammed? although it was good while it lasted.
My guess is that the device got busted, that would explain the way the job was started but never finished. I imagine very well someone ripping the device apart upon finding it strapped under his mattress.
Sounds like the Splaining will come slightly before schedule :P
that OR
Anonbestman shat himself too much at the thought of admitting the prank to his buddy because of the sheer amount of people involved, so he just went and removed the hardware. This way he can bury all the proofs and never have to tell his buddy what he did…
Thanks for sharing..I really like weddings..I just love them..see ya !
How did this end and what was the reaction like? A friend has just been telling me this story at the Christmas party for work and I couldn’t stop laughing – so funny! I’m sure they will both understand, but all I can find is articles like the one shown here and not the aftermath… help! x
How did that not get discovered? Well and truly ‘staggered’ by this one!
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