My friend Bryan is a really, really nice guy. That’s why ruining his life over the internet was going to be so much fun.

I’m in a fantasy football league with eleven of my best friends from high school. At the start of last season, we decided to punish whoever came in last place. Bryan suggested that the twelfth-place finisher cede control of their Facebook to me for three days, a brilliant idea that was unanimously approved. If I did my job, it would be embarrassing but relatively harmless.

Cut to early January 2014, and it was Bryan that finished last (by a lot, he sucked). He handed over his Facebook password – and an audience of 1,136 Facebook friends – on January 7th, with a few basic rules:

- No private messaging

- No posting on others’ walls

- Nothing that could jeopardize his job

This seemed pretty unreasonable, but I resisted the urge to immediately nuke his social life with a bombastic post about some divisive political or social issue. Instead, I just dipped my toe in the water:

** To protect privacy, I’ve blacked out the names and pictures of everyone involved but Bryan. If you’re reading these and want your comment entirely removed, just tweet me @michaelwaldron.

Bryan has never, ever played any sort of instrument. He’s a hairy Italian guy, but more like James Gandolfini than Andrea Bocelli, so this sudden interest in music definitely came as a surprise to his Facebook pals.

Next I posted a picture of Bryan, myself, and some other friends from high school. We were painted blue and cheering on the football team.

Eager to titillate the masses, I fired off a couple of posts aimed at Bryan’s friends around the SEC.

(NOTE: Along our journey, you’ll notice some comments from folks who seem to be in on the joke. In most cases, these are Bryan’s college friends who aren’t quite sure what’s happening, but know him well enough to smell a rat. The members of our fantasy league generally kept quiet.)

This came after Auburn lost to FSU in the National Championship game:

After typing the words “suckling sweet nectar from the teet of Truth”, I became drunk with power.

I soon realized that posting music videos and idiotic football commentary wouldn’t cut it. If I was truly going to ruin Bryan’s life, I needed the internet to first pay attention to his life. And so began Bryan’s love affair with music, and his steady descent into madness:

These lyrics were stolen from “Timing is Everything”, a song in the movie Country Strong.

That was the final post on Day 1. The next day, January 8th, I had to fly back to Los Angeles from Atlanta. This gave me a great idea.

I was going to Los Angeles, and Bryan was coming with me.

Obviously this impromptu trip to Los Angeles was weird as shit to Bryan’s friends and family, but for the most part, everybody was pretty supportive. I mean Keith Urban, how cool is that?

After landing an amazing professional opportunity, Bryan was quickly seduced by the Hollywood glitz and glamor.

That was the last post of Day 2. The next morning I woke up super early and got to work:

I was pretty amazed at how supportive Bryan’s friends were being. Even if they suspected that he was a delusional drug addict (which they absolutely should have), they didn’t show it. Instead, they just shared kind words of encouragement and advice.

At this point texts were pouring in to our group of friends, asking if Bryan had lost his mind. Everybody played it straight, maintaining that we had no idea what was going on, but fully supported our buddy following his dream.

At last, the moment of truth arrived:

The record booth at my office (Starburns Industries) made for a nice added touch. Look at Eric Martin there, pretending to be a sound engineer.

At this point, I knew I had the entire internet, or at least Bryan’s meager friend list, by the balls.

Bryan’s friends know him as a sweet, selfless guy. They probably didn’t think Hollywood would change him, that success would make him an arrogant, preening asshole. They were wrong.

Here’s the full version of Dog Sittin’, which I wrote myself because I am a talented country musician:

Unfortunately, pride goeth before destruction.

The disappointment of Bryan’s failed #studiosesh was just too much for him to withstand.

The #ground is where Bryan remained for quite some time.

That evening, I went to a (real) party at the Roosevelt. Bryan’s sad story continued into the night.

(He really was, but I never worked up the courage to take a picture.)

These posts from the Roosevelt came pretty late on the west coast, so Bryan’s friends and family back in Georgia didn’t read everything until the next morning. Once they did, we all started getting even more alarmed texts and phone calls. Not only did everyone believe this shit…they actually cared!



Three days had passed. I asked Bryan for a few extra hours on Day 4 to end his story properly. He happily obliged. The whole thing had, in fact, been great for him – rather than torpedoing his social life, I’d accidentally made him the most popular guy on Facebook. Now I just had to give the #bryansfinallyflyin saga the satisfying conclusion it deserved.

This was my final post as Bryan. The #song is “Flightless Bird, American Mouth” by Iron and Wine. It plays at the end of the first Twilight movie and just felt appropriate:

Those final words were deeply moving for Bryan’s friends.

An hour later, Bryan retook control of his Facebook and let everybody know that the whole thing had been fake. The response was overwhelming, and just the ego boost I’d hoped for when I started posting.

And that was the end. For a few days in January, we told a story on Facebook that captured the hearts and minds of around 200 people. I’m not sure what I took away from all this, except that Bryan has a lot of great friends. They lifted me up off the #ground. It was pretty cool.

Our new fantasy football season kicked off a few weeks ago. As of today, I’m the worst team in the league.

Bryan is 6-0 and in first place.