The Internet Goes Trick-or-Treating

On Halloween night, Mike Trapp answers his door to trick-or-treaters who are personified internet platforms. Snapchat and Instagram arrive in identical ghost sheets and squabble over who copied whom, Twitter shows up in a uniform that turns out not to be a costume, and BuzzFeed insists it is a serious journalist while Facebook tags along. Facebook keeps returning in new disguises, from Messenger to Marketplace, until Trapp tells it to pick one thing. YouTube admits he has no costume and is just out with his kids, YouTube Red and YouTube TV; Reddit claims to be memes but promises it has cut ties with the trolls. A Russian state-media troll then arrives announcing that he is Facebook, and a final grim-reaper visitor turns out to be the long-dead Vine.