User:Gfdgsgxgzgdrc
From Homestar Runner Wiki
From an interview on Gfdgsgxgzgdrc's revolutionary userpage prank:
GFDGSGXGZGDRC: Hey, can you please get out of my house?
The Great Userpage Prank of 2024, as the name implies, was an event of historic significance involving the decoration of wiki user Gfdgsgxgzgdrc's userpage for April Fools' Day 2024. The phenomenon of users making edits to their userpages on April Fools' Day had been well documented by that point, but scholars generally agree that Gfdgsgxgzgdrc was the first to truly capitalize on the concept's full potential, shifting the landscape of April Fools' Day userpage pranks for decades to come.
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Description
While the userpage's usual contents consisted of a list of major contributions and some userboxes, it was on April 1, 2024 that Gfdgsgxgzgdrc replaced the page in its entirety with a fake article describing the prank itself as if it were a historic event. To flesh out the idea further, Gfdgsgxgzgdrc made up arbitrary details, like the prank becoming massively popular.
The page had a lot of sections, like "Description", where the page was described, and "History", where its history was described. In a few places, it was apparent that the text had been needlessly padded out to increase the length of the page, making the joke marginally funnier.
History
Pre-launch
In February 2024, it occurred to Gfdgsgxgzgdrc that he should start thinking about how to decorate his userpage for April Fools' Day, as he had done something to mark the occasion every year since 2015. Three out of the previous four years, his pranks were notably very ambitious. Initially, seeing as he was already working on an April Fools' Day event over at the Homestar Runner Fanstuff Wiki 2, he opted for something more simple — his first idea being to make his userpage look like a 404 error page of some sort.
On March 3rd of that year, a more interesting idea occurred to him: he would rewrite his userpage in the style of an article describing the prank itself. He wrote a draft of the page at about 1am that night, then saved his magnum opus in a NotePad document on his desktop so he could paste it on his userpage when the time came. He ended up making some slight edits to it, but mostly left its contents intact, simply because he didn't care enough to make it that hilarious or well-written.
When asked about this in an interview, Gfdgsgxgzgdrc had this to say:
Wait, I never talked about how I came up with this prank, did I? How did you guys know all of that? And why do you like it so much anyway? I really just wanted to do something quick and lazy this year, it's not even that clever.
Mainstream success
On April 1, the prank went live, and immediately exploded. Every user on the wiki began talking about it. The sysops elected to ban Gfdgsgxgzgdrc from the wiki so he could never revert the page back to its inferior default state. Within hours, it spread beyond the wiki, its subversive metatextuality being discussed on forums and social media across the internet. It became the subject of countless reaction videos, memes, and news articles, overtaking the popularity of the wiki and Homestar Runner itself. As of today, "The Great Userpage Prank of 2024" is the fourth most visited page for a media property on TVTropes.
A live-action film adaptation of the userpage was rumored, and eventually confirmed, to be in production, directed by Peter Jackson. Despite the positive reception to its marketing campaign, it was soon cancelled to due to a troubled production and licensing issues. Those who worked on the film have not been seen in months. The investigation is ongoing.
Reception
- "For years, my dog has had 28 diseases. People told me this userpage would cure my dog's diseases, and I didn't believe them. But now I see the truth... This userpage is the only thing that truly matters. Keep your diseases for all I care." — A pretty bad person
- "A million stars!" — Age 7
- "I can't recommend this prank enough. No matter how hard I try. No matter how much I suffer. No matter what crimes I commit... I can never recommend it enough." — Stay away from this person
- "A billion stars!" — Age 7
- (This person was speaking Spanish. I couldn't understand what they said, but I assume it was about how great this userpage is.) — A Spanish person
- "This is the fifth review!" — Person who can't count
- "What's all the fuss about?" — Gfdgsgxgzgdrc
Sequel
Later on, Gfdgsgxgzgdrc would attempt to capitalize on the popularity of his creation with another userpage prank: a fake wiki article about how the prank's sequel was considerably less well-received. This sequel received immense backlash due to its unpurposeful reuse of the original format, seemingly missing the point of what made that original so impactful. Critics claim the prank's sequel was "subversive for the sake of subversion" and "lack[ed] the sincerity of the original", calling it "little more than nostalgia bait".
The backlash intensified when the public relations team admitted to putting live pythons in people's trousers "just because it's kinda funny".
Following this commercial failure and ensuing PR disaster, Gfdgsgxgzgdrc has not been seen in months. The investigation is ongoing.
