⚠️ IMPORTANT SCAM PSA ⚠️

About

⚠️ IMPORTANT SCAM PSA ⚠️ refers to a series of parody tweets in which a user appears as though they are going to warn people about a viral scam, only to reveal the "scam" to be something humorous. The phrasal template, appearing online in April 2024, usually involves a joke or complaint about a pop culture reference with a setup similar to other bait-and-switch humor.

Origin

On April 5th, 2024 Twitter user @splatatouille^[6] posted a 25-tweet long thread outlining a scam they fell victim to. Through the thread, since deleted, the user outlined how they had been scammed out of money, though many on the app felt the scam was obvious and @splatatouille should not have fallen for it.

Spread

On April 5th, 2024, Twitter / X user @ghostopal_^[1] posted an "Important Scam PSA" parody, though the text of their "PSA" ended up describing the Looney Toons Painted Tunnel on a Wall Gag, gaining over 10,000 retweets and 68,000 likes in five days (shown below).

⚠️ IMPORTANT SCAM PSA ⚠️
Theres a new scam going around that's not very obvious and can be easy to fall for! If you see a tunnel that looks like the image on the left,
DON'T RUN INTO IT!
(more info in thread)

Over the following several days, Twitter users posted "IMPORTANT SCAM PSA" parodies with various jokes. On April 6th, 2024, Twitter user @spacebruce^[2] posted a parody referencing Puella Magi Madoka Magica, gaining over 3,500 retweets and 11,000 likes in four days (shown below, left).

On April 7th, user @MonkeyNess^[3] posted the joke with an Earthbound reference, gaining over 170 retweets and 380 likes in three days (shown below, right).

Other popular examples include an April 7th tweet by @MBTYuGiOh^[4] with a Yu-Gi-Oh reference, gaining over 240 retweets and 1,900 likes in three days (shown below, left) and the same day, user @KrisSkulls^[5] posted an example with a van reading "free candy," gaining over 1,000 retweets and 7,500 likes in the same time frame (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References