“Happy birthday André!” This simple post on the City of Laval’s Facebook page, posted online Wednesday, went viral when Internet users, other municipalities and businesses got into the game and responded with hilarious replies.
As of 11:30 a.m., the post had received more than 400 comments, 800 likes and 130 shares.
Among the comments were those of the mayor of Laval, Stéphane Boyer, specifying that “André” is not the mayor of the city, and of the Minister of Municipal Affairs, Andrée Laforest, indicating that his birthday is only in April.
Towns in the surrounding area and elsewhere in Quebec joined in to have a laugh at the publication, while businesses competed in imagination to offer gifts to the mysterious André.
Joke
It all started when the city’s social media manager, Aimée Dufour-Desrosiers, wanted to make a joke. “The idea was to make people believe that it was a mistake, a blunder, like people who don’t understand Facebook’s codes can make,” she explained in a telephone interview.
So, André doesn’t exist? “No, absolutely everything is fictional,” she replies.
Immediately, colleagues from Laval contacted her to point out this “error.” “It made me laugh, and we waited before responding to them to leave the doubt hanging for as long as possible,” she says with a laugh.
Aimée Dufour-Desrosiers, who has worked for the city for 20 years, is used to adding humour to her social media posts. For example, an ad stating that jobs were available at the city featured a couple in love whispering sweet nothings in each other’s ears.
What particularly made him laugh in his post about André were the Internet users who understood the second degree of the message and who responded with phrases typically used by people less comfortable with social media, or messages frequently found on the web, as well as jokes.
Some examples: “HI ANDRE. I WOULD LIKE AND APPRECIATE IT IF YOU REPLY TO ME WHEN I SEND YOU A MESSAGE… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …!”, replied the City of Montreal.
“ANDRÉ,,, I MISSED YOU BY A DAY,,, HOPING IT WAS STILL A NICE BIRTHDAY XXXX DOU DOU DOUUUU”, stressed the Société de transport de Montréal.
“Hello André! I came across your profile and thought it would be great to connect and become friends. You seem like a great person who loves life and Laval birthdays,” commented the company Solutions M, recalling the scammers’ favorite messages.
“Is this item available?” one user laughed.
“Please remove me from this list. Thank you,” wrote another.
“Hello… It’s official. Signed at 10:33. It’s even on TV. Mine really turned blue,” joked one Facebook regular.
“Hello, can we replace the bananas with avocados in the banana bread recipe? Thank you,” said one citizen, clearly a subscriber to Ricardo’s recipes.
The Plateau-Mont-Royal borough even made an acrostic for André: “Clever, Noble, Funny, Reserved, Amazed… are just a few words that make me think of you on this beautiful day.”
The City of Quebec, for its part, recalled that Laval was a palindrome and wrote “happy birthday érdnA!”
“It’s clear that André will be remembered in the annals of the city,” said Aimée Dufour-Desrosiers. “We have to be able to laugh in our communications.”