National

People in San Francisco are finding AirPods all over the streets. But it’s a prank

Is everyone in San Francisco losing their AirPods?

Not quite — but it might seem that way on some of the Northern California city’s streets.

San Francisco artist Pablo Rochat printed out life-size AirPod stickers and wrote on Twitter over the weekend that he “stuck them on the ground, all over the city.”

Rochat shared a video clip as one of the tiny white earbud stickers was affixed to a pole.

“I got a pair myself recently, and they’re an awkward shape so I drop them occasionally. I see my friends drop them, too,” Rochat said, according to SFGate. “I thought it would be funny just to pretend like everyone’s dropping them.”

His original tweet about the prank has been retweeted more than 3,000 times and liked nearly 20,000 times as of Monday afternoon.

Rochat says people have fallen for it — and he sometimes stays around to see It happen.

“It was fun to watch people walk by the stickers, do a double take, and occasionally bend over to try to pick the AirPods up,” Rochat said, per Business Insider.

Read Next

But not everyone is laughing.

“Most people found it funny, but a few people were pissed that they got pranked,” Rochat said, according to Business Insider.

Enterprising pranksters can copy the stunt at home by printing an AirPod sticker template Rochat has shared on his website.

Rochat has scattered the stickers on Market Street in San Francisco’s downtown, SFGate reports — and he’s thinking about laying out even more prank stickers later this week.

So far, Rochat has put down about 15 stickers, VICE reports.

This story was originally published November 18, 2019 at 5:58 PM with the headline "People in San Francisco are finding AirPods all over the streets. But it’s a prank."

Related Stories from Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Jared Gilmour
mcclatchy-newsroom
Jared Gilmour is a McClatchy national reporter based in San Francisco. He covers everything from health and science to politics and crime. He studied journalism at Northwestern University and grew up in North Dakota.
Get unlimited digital access
#ReadLocal

Try 1 month for $1

CLAIM OFFER