I’m sure you’re all familiar with the story of the guy who tried to pay his phone bill with a picture of a spider. It quickly went viral and if you suss out the rest of David Thorne’s page, you’ll find much more hilarious content. He was also the same guy behind this McDonald’s hoax letter.

Personally I find his work pretty damn hilarious. The emails back and forth are no more harmful than the prank calls we hear every day on radio, although I’m not sure where the line is when it comes to pretending to be a brand. I’m certain the Brand Manager had a blast the day that letter went viral.

I bring this up because of David’s latest email exchange; hilarity ensues. The interesting thing about this however, is that Simon’s Twitter account was quickly discovered. Needless to say, Simon received a fair amount of abuse, most of which was anonymous. Simon then took it upon himself to respond to blog posts, comments and even write a post of his own. And while it probably wasn’t David’s intention to have Simon’s personal account identified, suddenly this “harmless” prank became somewhat more serious. Simon’s online persona and his offline world very quickly collided, and much more became at stake.

I think we’re going to see this happen more often, definitely something to be cautious about.

Also, how good is the title of this post?