Debate’s biggest winner may have been a Biden-trolling prankster
Former Vice President Joe Biden botched his plug at the end of Wednesday night’s presidential debate ― and a prankster quickly took advantage of it.
“If you agree with me, go to Joe 30330 and help me in this fight,” Biden said during his closing statement.
Joe Biden telling a nationwide debate audience to "go to joe30330" is a digital strategist's nightmare
luckily, he doesn't have any working on his campaign. pic.twitter.com/ebhikdnYZP— Brett Banditelli is very tired. (@banditelli) August 1, 2019
Biden likely was asking people to text “Joe” to that number. But his botched phrasing made it sound like a plug for a website, and sure enough, someone bought Joe30330.com.
As of late Wednesday, the URL was redirecting to the website of a prank campaign for Josh Fayer, who on April Fools’ Day posted a video asking every Democrat in America for a $1 million loan to support a platform built around “no homework in college.”
A database search reveals that someone bought the URL via a discount registrar shortly after the Biden flub, but no contact name is listed.
It’s not clear if Fayer bought the URL quickly or if someone else did and redirected it to his website. Early reports on Twitter indicated that the URL may have redirected to Pete Buttigieg’s campaign website first and Fayer’s donations page suggests sending contributions to the South Bend, Indiana, mayor.
Fayer’s Twitter profile says he is a student at Syracuse University studying public relations and public communications.
He should probably get an A+ for this one.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
