April 01, 2006
Fool me twice, shame on...Blog
As some of you have now guessed, we were NOT in fact taken over by the junk peddlers of “Happy Hippie.” Our url is still very much our own. We want to take this opportunity to first thank the dozens who sent us emails of sympathy and offers of help to defend against the scurrilous cyber-squatters who chose the day before April 1st to attack us. Former SM guestblogger Cicatrix wrote to us immediately:
Who the f*ck are those squatters? They’re clearly not out to sell anything, but they’ve put in a lot of thought/effort (to mock either desis or hippies, I can’t tell) for random some web-hostage-takers. It’s like they deliberately hated sepiamutiny or something. I wonder if that idiot sepiahokum person is behind this. good luck, sepia crew. tell us if there’s anything we can do.
Former guestblogger PG wrote to us later in the day:
Hey’all,
Sorry to see you’ve gotten squatted. The “products” — they’re all fake and there are no working links to buy them — are insult to injury. A friend pointed out that according to register.com, you still should have the domain name until August 4, 2006. Could you give me more info on how this happened? I’d like to help if I can. Good luck,PG
Half the Sins of Mankind & De Novo
In addition, parts of the blogosphere were in shock (and some a bit happy) to see what had become of us (see here, here, here, here, and here).
Also, a special shot-out to the dark one for being such a good sport:
I was going to post something here about how sepiamutiny got hijacked, but i’ve realized i’ve probably once again been caught by their april fool’s joke.
f*ckers :)
p.s.—it is quite amusing when you read the entries for “happy hippie” :)
Let’s not forget to mention the signed petition either.
But…there were also heroes out there today. A diligent few could not be fooled by so simple and pathetic a hoax. One in particular, Kaps of DesiPundit and Sambhar Mafia, took it upon himself to figure out which bloggers had been fooled and then left a comment on each of their websites informing them of the elaborate deception. Folks, I want to humbly submit his name for special recognition during next year’s world-renowned Indibloggies. That kind of devotion to truth and justice in the blogosphere simply MUST be recognized by his peers. It was, dare I say, delightful. :)
Actually, things got kind of crazy for a bit over at Desipundit. Someone even left a comment pretending to be me! Then the real me stepped forward to set the record straight.
Finally, I must address the villains that surfaced today on our “back-up site”. All the ghosts of the ignorant, who we have banned from Sepia Mutiny for leaving bigoted/racist/intolerant comments, were giddy with excitement over the fact that we had suffered a downfall, which would enable them, once again, to leave bigoted/racist/intolerant comments on our new site (on which they hadn’t yet been banned). It is really quite sad that they have nothing better to do with their lives, but who am I to judge? To these sad individuals I say “have an Endurance Bar,” and find the strength to do something more productive with your lives.
Thanks everyone! We hope you had fun. Each mutineer contributed to the product designs (can you guess who was the main force behind each design?) and Manish put the website together. We PROMISE not to continue this tradition next year.
Oh…I almost forgot. “Dhoomketu,” from the bottom of our hearts we apologize for the blasphemy.
abhi on April 1, 2006 12:30 AM in Blog · T·r·a·c·k·b·a·c·k address · Direct link · Email post
Damn you! Damn you all! ;)
Omigawd, you got me!!! But, you gotta admit, that happy site was SO damn eeerie, although oddly familiar - it was gross! heh heh.
Abhi,
Have you talked to Mossad recently? You better do.
Their seems to be in Chinese hand in this too.
If it is any consolation I was rather touched by your email ;)
"Horn OK Please"
Oh, I don't need consolation, I need BLOOD!!!! ;)
with sm out of action for a a day, i was forced to waste some browsing time reading a zillion other blogs (thanks guys). it was interesting, but basically there are way too many blogs out there all repeating a lot of the same info and with 0 comments for every single post. but still they soldier on. have to admire that impulse. blogging really does require the strength of Hanuman!
I AM HURT! DAMNIT! How could you fool us?
actually.. i rememebered how you shut down this site last year. phew.
it was really funny & well done. great stuff. also got to learn that there is a place in Pune called "horn ok please" which might or might not exist but has great food and ambience. true??? thought i glimpsed the cover of talvin singh's album "ok" there. nice one.happy all fools day.cheers
As someone who spent a half an hour looking into how you were "attacked" on behalf of one of your readers, I have to say I'm upset at the rather juvenile prank. Very cute. Thank you for wasting my time by crying wolf.
A simple whois record check revealed it all. I thought no one would fall for this but what do I know? :-)
yay! you're back! good job on the happy hippy products - if they weren't so damn funny and knowing, you might have had more people fooled and trying to rush order copies of The Progressive Ideological Democrats & Independents Organizational Training System by day and those hot linga thongs by night.
come on, if happy hippies were cyber-squatters, why would they leave a link to the "popular blog at this page"? :)
Truly.. did anyone get taken in by this prank.. sigh.
Anywho, on second thought only people who have not fallen for it might be geeks, skeptics and once-burnt-twice-shy. I have to admit 'Happy Hippie' was quite amusing.
You mean Manish didn't run off with the loot to his Arabian-sea-side love nest? Damn. I was so impressed with Vij consulting's sneakiness. ;-)
Omigawd, you got me!!! But, you gotta admit, that happy site was SO damn eeerie, although oddly familiar - it was gross! heh heh.
me too...though halway thru the day i began to wonder....
Or indeed, someone who thought it wasn't domain theft--precluded, as you say, by the whois lookup--but thought it might be a particularly clever and malicious hack. If one isn't a regular Sepia Mutiny reader and doesn't know whether the domain owners are particularly cunning with technology, it's easy to assume they've just misdiagnosed the problem. Which then leads to time spent thinking how it might be done and what help might be given.
All of which is completely wasted because it's in fact a couple of jerks crying wolf.
I think this whole episode supports Shruti's point in The tao of Steve comments.
Welcome back!
PS: Where can I get me some $70 toilet paper (or whatever the difference was?)
wolf! wolf! wolf!
good lord, call the wah-mbulance already. is everyone who similarly participates in april 1st-related mischief also a jerk? we're merely a blog, not ashton in a shitty trucker hat cackling, "punk'd!" after a public/televised humiliation. a simple google search would've proven that we celebrated foolishly last year as well, setting...what's that lawyer-y word for it...hmmm...PRECEDENT.
sadly,you're making a persuasive argument which supports every one of my new-york-attorney/friends' collective contention that law school should be avoided at all costs, since it eviscerates creativity and destroys the spirit. you, however, are definitely in the right profession, since you're so wounded you lost precisely half-an-hour of your eventually billable time. :D snark aside, no one forced you to use 30 minutes of your life the way you nobly chose to, you decided to do so on your own (granted, it was in service to a friend, which is kind on your part, but that doesn't exactly summon images of a gun pointed at your head.)
life is too short to be so bitter, vindictive and rigid, mr. rickey (and if i'm the one typing that, you've got it bad). there's plenty of time for THAT after three years of hell, when you're at cravath.
p.s. dell blows. ;)
- the sole female jerk, with the elegant white apple in her lap
It was a nice try but was easy to decipher as well. Since everything on Apr 1 is suspect, it did not stand the scrutiny for even a minute. The fooling thingy will be come less predictable if only one could play pranks on day of the month instead of just Apr 1 alone.
D'oh!
And I was so worried too! This is one of my favorite blogs!!!
I'm glad that it was just an April Fool's joke! :)
Damn damn you guys for pulling such a slick one! After Kaps warned me, I got the sinking and at once delightful feeling that he could be right. An April fool's prank on March 31st. :-)
...and then I get quoted on Sepia. Wow! am turning cartwheels in sheer delight ;-)
Good one guys.
i was up that morning pretty damn early and when i saw that, it took me for a second..then i realized april 1st was the next day, and i knew astronaut abhi would be pulling one of his pranks...although i liked the happy hippie site... fun times... wanted to order some of those items ;)
happy april fools day everyone
the bean
You folks are all nuts, I SO wasn't had..
As I said in my email to Manish: Without SM around, I would surely forget about April Fool's day..
good one though..
very funny.
Yeah ok, so I fire off emails to you guys congratulating you on the joke... and then I begin to second guess myself since Anna said that it wasn't a joke. And then I start feeling like a complete idiot... now this!
Kallammaar!
:)
Start working on next year's prank now .. one that will fool us commenters who have been around for the past 2 episodes =)
Ooh and next time have a secret link to the real blog that only those who really search the fake site can find .. like the websites of Lost. That would be cool! Yes, silly me actually searched the site for a "ha ha, we got you" link =)
The White House just contacted me on the petition I just started. They want to know more about Sepia Mutiny. A N N A, i have pointed them toward you.
I will be dropping this into conversation at the earliest opportunity. :)
You didnt fool me for even one second.....but it was hilarious.....everyone knows a maharani doll would cost more than $24.95! :P
Hahaha! Good prank, guys!
Once I recorded an answering machine message, in a completely natural voice with perfectly-timed pauses, that went like this:
Hello?....
Sorry, Nina's not here right now. Can I take a message?
BEEEEP!
Of course callers thought it was me at first and started conversing, only to be suddenly told mid-sentence they were duped. I thought it was the best answering machine message evah - I still do, in fact - but it so deeply offended so many callers, including the man I was just starting to date at the time (who is now my ex-husband) who fell for it over and over and was not amused, (foreshadowing, perhaps, the disaster 5 years later that inspired my current life's work) that I changed it back to a conventional message.
I say, rock on Mutineers!
Good one guys! Those sincere emails of support are priceless. Even if only a handful fell for it, those messages of support make it all worth it.
Now to connect the mutineer to the product :
Vinod : "The Progressive Ideological Democrats & Independents Organizational Training System" (That's obvious !)
Abhi : Heart of Hanuman endurance bar
Sajit : Horn OK Please CD
The doll, the vacation package and the thong : Anna, Ennis and Manish respectively.
How did I do ?
p.s.
For the record, I didn't fall for it, and tried to warn my fellow readers a day early.
nina:
your msg is awesome...i would've laughed... hehe...
love the google april fools joke.. you guys should check it out ;)
good job guys... - loved the attention to detail - the cute little references - the lingam, the asshat, the cafe-au-lait, the hornok, and on an on... - it was a labor of love and much appreciated - keep on trucking - and just wish i had kept a screenshot for posterity's sake. maybe you should print glossies and sell it for like $4.99 a pop. btw - the folks at badmash.org had a shout out to you applauding your work.
Click on the link to "Happy Hippie" in the first line (or in my comment).
Definitely was an elaborate hoax. But I guess, people who have been on the blogosphere was almost come to expect such acts on April 1st. I wouldn't have been fooled even if apna Kaps hadn't blown the cover. But the fake comment by Abhi on DesiPundit certainly threw me off but I was more amused than anything else. Good try, Mutineers.
Damn you grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr imagine my shock as I settled into another ineffective work day and go to SM to find that ridiculous page. I was ineffective with anger for the next half hour. A half hour later it hit me that it was the day before April Fools and you fools made a fool of me!!! Grrrrrr I was all hysterical for a half hour. Don't ever do that to me again. I actually worked yesterday!!
I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU ALL!
okay no not really...but u suck.
happy april fool's!
It was good, but I ruined it for myself by looking up who still owns the domain
oh.. cool ennis.. thank you
i cant imagine how much time it took you all to piece this together from conception to execution - i ballpark it at around 120 (wo)man hours cumulative - outside your regular jobs - i am in awe - i am a certified punkah now.
Though I followed the DesiPundit link and realised it was a spoof, I thought it was inspired! Well done! I managed to fool some readers on mine too by pretending the site had been hacked.
Hey guys - no need for shame - it does not reflect on your intelligence to get fooled once in a while. Worry not - the hundreds of thousands you've spent on your ivy league education was still a good investment! ;)
It's April Fool's - laugh a little!!! Once I realized it was a joke, it was fun- like a kid again, adrenalin pumpin' - akin to almost getting caught in a game of hide'n'seek. But still, that will not exempt you from a master plan of vengeance (BWA HA HA HA BWA HA HA HA (evil laugh)).
Fantastic! Hilarious! I laughed! I cried!
I want to enter into a contract with (Abhi?) to manufacture and sell "Heart of Hanuman" bars. I bet we could actually make some cash.
Of course, we'll have to outsource production, marketing, customer service, and any function that would require me to get out of bed.
Thanks for a good gag, guys & gal.
Very funny and very good. I was totally fooled.
Mr. Rickey -- A whole 30 minutes??? Horrors! As others have noted, much more time gets sucked out of many people's day when the site is up and running, so overall efficiency was still probably up a few notches for the day. I suppose that your 30 minutes are, alas, simply collateral damage.
i really hope that was Vinod with the Desi Progressive Democracts....that one kind of hurt!
ps Nina, kudos on your work! much respect
what A N N A said! wolf! wolf! wolf!
hey, where's cicatrix? :)
I didnt fall for it at all. I remember lst year's barfight prank. :-)
It was a little too obvious, you know?
Why on earth would a company that stole your name have the mercy to link you on their front page?
Followed the link and knew right away what was going on when I saw that comments had been disabled on the "temp blog".
Try harder next year, ok?
Ha. My inspiration for the bar idea was the Hanuman in your cartoons. :)
I move that we create a North Dakota-based conglomerate entitled "Monkey Bars," selling "Heart of Hanuman" nutritional products and ghee-based beauty products. Nina, you're on advertising, Abhi is CEO, and we certainly have enough brown power to handle web-based marketing. We can be sponsors of Badmash events.
Wow.
wow, i am very impressed. i was crushed when i thought the mutnineers had been ousted and my hub for desi hipness was no more, now i'm just giddy to find out you are all highly skilled wacky funsters. yes, you got me. no, i'm not afraid to admit it.
who is this Art guy, anyway, and why is he imitating my life?
heh heh. good one!
and i spent all that time trying to buy ..ahrm ahrm, a few of the products as well...
very tricksie doing it days earlier.
=)
Fine, Anna, I'm sorry I called you guys jerks. On the other hand, one of your friends and co-bloggers did ask for my help (I'm the person PG referenced), because she thought you might need it. I have exams--nothing "billable" there--coming up, and I really don't have a lot of free time. Now I find out that I was late to meet my seminar group yesterday because you wanted a laugh.
You're quite correct: I'm not in the habit of checking to see if someone's lying when they ask for help, or if they've been duped when they ask for help on behalf of a friend. Thank you for proving that should be part of my Good Samaritan checklist.
It was a damn good prank. But the happy hippie ads were weird enough to suspect a joke.
Welcome back.
Nina, I'm totally sold. I'm even working on a jingle (we can licence Gershwin tunes, I bet - or they may even be public domain soon) that has something to do with this:
"Swami, Swami, how I love ya how I love ya, my dear old Swami. . ."
Or maybe based on "agua de beber."
Fantastic!
hehehhehe
by the time I realized it I had already pulled out my Visa & suitcase for the package tour!!
Ppffffttt..... How totally embarrassing, yaar.
Never thought I'd cringe to see my name featured prominently on a post until now..
the burning shame!!
In my defense, it was some strange in-between hour as twilight turned to dawn, I was tired, and I never know what day it is anyway. The last fact is confirmed by the many (no less than five) concerned friends who've already called me today about daylight savings time, telling me how exactly I should be setting my clocks..
Yes, have no doubt that I'll fall for this again next year. But now you know why I never remember your birthdays.
*goes back to lurking....spring forward, fall back, spring forward, fall back, spri..*
Last I checked, that's called the Foxtrot. Oh well, you might as well dance.
you know what had me laughing? reading the comments lashing out at the "cybersquatters."
i love april fool's day... people are SOOOOOO gullible.
nice job guys.
D'oh.
Nice one. I was completely fooled. However, I was enthused about the prospect of hammering down in a domain name dispute. It would have been a fun one.
Yeah, the lack of reading material led me to read the mutineers' personal blogs, and I was going to email Abhi to tell him the joke was too obvious and he has good taste in hip hop, but I stopped myself because I wasn't sure if it was he or someone else behind the book idea. I was able to identify the SM discussion that was the basis of each product except for that one. Although I hate liberals and democrats, I kinda suspected the inspiration for the book came partly from my posts in The tao of Steve, where I mentioned that I was an organizer. I'm probably wrong in my suspicion, but I didn't want to say the joke was too obvious and then not even recognize that one of the products was making fun of me--wouldn't that be embarrassing?! ...Especially followed by a compliment on music taste, a most prestigous recognition if it's coming from me ;)
Abhi and the rest...you got me too. Good one! You guys were definitely more clever then google. Doing this a day before april 1st got me good!
So, ahem, do you know where I can get the 'Lingam' printed thong? Umm, for a friend you see. LOL
It was the lone Libertarian's doing. :)
apology accepted, my good man. very kind of you to commence your comment thusly, before getting all lawyerly...
when a plane is crashing, your duty is to affix your own oxygen mask even before attending to the gasps of your own child. handle your own shit before you save another, my saintly father always said (verbatim). i'm sure you were fully aware that you were late to meet your group once you arrived tardily, that you didn't find that unfortunate fact out...after the fact. i think what you meant was, you later found that your reason for not being punctual was less than worthy of your sacrifice. also, *cough*personalresponsibility*cough*. no one here is accountable for you being late, your angelic intentions notwithstanding.
i never instructed you to do so, but that's a fascinating fact. what am i correct about again?
i'm slightly incredulous about this, considering the painfully obvious timing of this event. since we're sharing (squee!) i'll let you in on a fact about me. whenever my pure-hearted best friend or well-meaning s-i-l emails me about some almost-kidnapped child or soon-to-be-slaughtered puppies, i immediately head to snopes. does this mean that i love them less? that i am a meanypants who sucks? that i think they are gullible?
no, yes, maybe. look, all i'm typing is, it's amazing to me that an ivy-league law school student would make himself late to something important AND waste precious minutes of pre-exam time without considering exactly what he was choosing to do (and if it was even necessary or possible). i'm struck by how devoted you are to your friends, not that my opinion or admiration means two shits to you.
you are welcome? you can still be a good samaritan while retaining the capacity to think critically and creatively. but hey, my ancestors were converted by st. thomas, a.k.a. mr. "show-me-the-holes!". perhaps i doubt too readily as a very apposite result.
Awwww - let the poor guy be. We're sorry, man, that our prank caused you inconvenience. Good luck with your exams.
As for you Cicatrix, you're never going to live this one down. Evah!
For the rest of you at home, yes, Abhi did the exercise bars, and Vinod the book, and Fofatlal didn't get his in on time. So of the remaining 4 products, which ones did you think were done by whom?
love the title from the quote by Bush in Fahrenheit 9/11.....very apt !!
Good prank. By the way, I hope you realised that I was kidding... :-)
thong- anna
India trip- Manish
music- Sajit
Kama Sutra doll- Ennis
?
Whoever coined "samosa-tronic" gets mad props from me.
Yup - Sajit did the music and coined "Samosa-tronic" (which is good enough to use for real).
[As I said earlyer, Abhi did the exercise bar, and Vinod did the Progressive IDIOTS boook]
As for the rest?
Manish did the Kama Sutra dolls.
I subbed for Anna, and so wrote both the Passage to India travel agency and the Thong, although Manish did add key touches to both. My entries were supposed to be so over the top and so full of insider references that you had to know they were fakes, but they were based on real things.
You got me too, though when I checked WhoIs, I saw that your domain name has been registered through August 2006, and at that point I saw some black in the lentils.
Anyway, it made me realize how much I'd miss this site if it vanished. Keep the good stuff coming.
where was the hip hop reference in the IDIOTS write-up? Public Enemy?
anyway....Progressive IDIOTS....ouch harsh
I thought exotic dancing with water buffaloes should go on a t-shirt. Can't you please preserve that page somewhere??
But what becomes of those of us who actually want to try a Hanuman endurance bar?
The moment I read "Cows walking up and down the aisle of the plane...", I knew that it had Manish written all over it.
M. Nam
It wasn't in the "IDIOTS write-up." I was talking about the hip hop on Abhi's page. He likes Blackalicious, Talib Kweli, Mos Def, The Roots, etc.
And don't worry Sahej... how many people like Libertarians anyway? ;)
And yet ...
Congrats Ennis .. you wrote my favorite one (vacation package)
That was cheap. Playing a April fool joke the day before. And to think I was one of the symphatetic(sic?) ones.
There's nothing funny or cool about placing a religious Icon on an undergarment such as a thong. Ennis, how about taking it down and in the future asking someone who knows/cares about their religion whether they would be offended?
The April Folly was quite disappointing.
ah i see. i was trying to figure out and i was like....there's no lyric in there!
Pravasi,
I'm sorry you were offended. In case you missed the theme, the prank featured the very same types of products that we've complained about in the past. The thong was a reference to the very real thongs that have been sold before and that we've reported on (1, 2). Other relevant examples include the Beer Label with Ganesh on it and the statue of Ganesh with phalluses around his neck.
Again, we here at SepiaMutiny disapprove of all of the items in the mock ad. As we say above:
In case you're unfamiliar with the idea of April Fool's day, it's about inversion, about opposites, about turning the world upside down. In this case, our site was replaced by all the things that were anti-Sepia mutiny. And yes, even people who find these products offensive thought that our mockery of them was amusing. I'm sorry that you didn't.
Ennis:
From #75 above, you wrote the text for the thong. Who doctored the picture?
I have to admit it was a very executed prank ** tips hat **
Good gravy, that Shadow Warror blog entry is frightening. Maybe next year your April Fools' page could go hardcore Hindutva, denouncing "half-castes." Heck, you could just print that blog entry as is, it already reads like satire.
Ennis: Thanks for the reply. I'm quite familiar with April Fool's Day, and even participate in pranks myself. However, the point, as I see it, is to make someone feel foolish, without totally demeaning them, ridiculing their faith, or upsetting them.
Yes the "Hippie" takeover of SM was clever, and I chuckled to myself through the entire page (I've seen the "our domain has been hacked" wink-wink before and when done properly it is amusing) right until I scrolled down to the bottom, right image of the thong with a Shivling on it. Then I paused. I thought for a while, and felt that I should let those in charge of this site know that: dudes, now that's just not cool. The Shivling is revered. Its perhaps one of the oldest and most sacred symbols of Hinduism, predating many of the other Deities.
Now I doubt I'm on the fringe of this issue. I didn't find Hanuman energy bars offensive, the Kama Sutra reference was all good, but as another SM poster said over a year ago:
(link)
I am glad you are apologizing and can relate, however the best and perhaps only way to demonstrate this is to remove the image and refrain from posting such things in the future.
Pravasi,
We can understand your (and others) anguish and irritation. Also, we all appreciate your level-headedness on this issue.
However, at some point you have a give the bloggers/ writers/ painters/ actors/ artists a free-rein, otherwise we will never make any progress (or brownian motion) in human thought. Definitely, this one is not at par with Galileo's ideas but still it the concept of free expression that has to be upheld. We should not ask them or anyone of any promises.
Let us please do not see too much into it.
@Kush Tandon
However, at some point you have a give the bloggers/ writers/ painters/ actors/ artists a free-rein, otherwise we will never make any progress (or brownian motion) in human thought.
This is a very valid point, and I agree fully. Do Hindus really want cartoon-protest rallies on the scale of the recent ones that took place around the Muhammad cartoons? Isn't there a tradition within the Dharmic framework of laughing at, or making fun of, our divine images? There are (to me) disturbing signs that Hindus may be becoming more petulant and easily offended. This probably stems from a number of concerns - some valid, others paranoid - and I hope this trend does not intensify in the future.
On the other hand, I do understand the hurt some people feel. I cringed when I saw the Hanuman ad, not because I founded it offensive, but rather because I know many good people who believe in that way--who attach significance to water or sweets blessed with the numinousness of a temple or a holy grove. But then it was all in jest, so that thought quickly passed...
It wasn't doctored, it was a real product.