I have not been somebody who is known for gags, but fortunately I'm surrounded by people who enjoy pulling a fast one on somebody and a few times I have also been roped into the fun
I have not been somebody who is known for gags, but fortunately I'm surrounded by people who enjoy pulling a fast one on somebody and a few times I have also been roped into the fun.
One incident I remember from 2001 concerns a photographer. One day, two other colleagues used a fake chat ID, got in touch with this photographer, and pretended to be a hot chick from Russia. When the time came to exchange photographs, our lensman faithfully sent across his picture and when he wanted a photo of the Russian babe, well, me and my friends went across to a site called uglypeople.com, picked up an extremely fine specimen who looked like she had jumped off a Picasso painting, and sent it to our photographer pal.
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Needless to say, he was heartbroken when he saw the photo and furious when he found out that it was a gag.
We put together a proper letter offering this unsuspecting colleague a chance to have dinner with Abhishek Bachchan if she could tell us what the name of Aishwarya Rai's first movie was.
This colleague went around asking other colleagues, and I and my graphics friends had to keep a stiff upper lip to ensure that we didn't explode into guffaws of laughter. She finally said that it was the 1997 movie Iruvar, which was true, but my friend decided to play another trick he told her that she had lost because Ash had actually acted in a Tulu movie when she was just five years old. Our colleague didn't get it at all even though my graphics friend included his real mobile number in the mail of course he used a fake mail ID and claimed to live in a posh hotel in Dubai.
Such jokes are harmless and provide some entertainment in the office to staffers who feel crushed by deadline pressures, and so are generally welcome.
But some of the exploits mentioned above, which involve the Web, are usually used by crackers to rob people of their money and their online identity and then it is no longer funny.
But why do people fall for such gags?
Is it because we have such a high opinion of ourselves that we want to believe that we are cleverer, better looking and sexier than the average Joe or Jane and feel that actors will get a special thrill in meeting us?
u00a0Or is it because we are always waiting for fate to toss us the nice surprise that we believe was ours by right all along and feel that that letter from the kind, high ranking official from a bank in Nigeria will make us fabulously rich?
So be warned.
And the next time somebody sends you a mail telling you that Angelina Jolie wants to date you because she thinks that you are a handsome hunk, just delete it.
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