No, I don’t think I’ll be taking that lollipop

Take This Lollipop is designed to give you a Halloween thrill ride while making you think twice about the kind of information you put on Facebook. I don’t trust it.

Those who take this thing for a spin get to watch as a deranged guy played by actor Bill Oberst Jr. accesses your Facebook profile and looks over pictures of your kids, friends, spouses and reviews your birthday and other details with bone-chilling creepiness.

In an Ad Age interview with social media and marketing expert Porter Gale, creator Jason Zada describes how it works and why:

Mr. Zada, who is represented by Tool of North America, came up with the idea only a month ago. He woke up one morning and was thinking about how much he loves Halloween. “I wanted to do something that messed with people and I wrote the script. Instantly, I knew there was something special about the idea,” he said.

He said the clip is definitely meant to spur thought about how much information we share online. “Our privacy was dead a while back and will never be the same,” he said. “Life as a whole has changed. If you look at the video, the scariest part is that your information is in the video. The piece is scary because a person is violating your privacy, not because it’s bloody or there’s anything jumping out.”

There seems to be value in this sort of scare ride. People do need to think hard about what they reveal online.

I’m not going to try it because I’m afraid of what I might learn about my own online behavior.

Which is probably why I should do it.

–Bill Brenner

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