Hey Amy, did you hear about that weird thing that happened with NEAR Protocol? Their social media got all messed up!

Oh, you mean their marketing stunt? It wasn't a real hack, Sam. They were trying to get people's attention for their hackathon in Thailand.

Wait, what? It was fake? But why would they do that?

They wanted to stand out and get people talking. They made a character called 'HiJack' who took over their social media. It was like a play on an old TV thing from the 1980s.

An old TV thing? What do you mean?

Back in 1987, someone really did hack into a TV show in Chicago. They wore a mask of a character called Max Headroom and said silly things. NEAR copied that idea for their stunt.

That's so weird! Did people like it?

Well, it got mixed reactions. Some thought it was creative, but others didn't like it. Emily Lai, who works in crypto marketing, said it got people talking about NEAR more than usual, but not always in a good way.

I can see why. Pretending to be hacked sounds kind of scary. What did this 'HiJack' guy say?

He made fun of crypto and Web3, telling people to 'get a real job' and saying big companies like Apple and Amazon are more trustworthy than blockchain networks.

But isn't NEAR a blockchain company? Why would they say bad things about themselves?

It's a technique called reverse psychology. They hoped by saying these things, it would make people want to prove them wrong by coming to their hackathon and building cool stuff.

Did it work? Are more people going to their hackathon now?

It's hard to say for sure. The stunt got attention, but some people were upset. One company even sent out a real warning thinking NEAR had actually been hacked!

Wow, that could be really bad for NEAR, right? People might not trust them now.

You're right, Sam. Trust is super important in crypto. NEAR took a big risk with this stunt. It shows how hard it can be to market blockchain projects in a way that gets attention without causing problems.

I guess they were trying to be different from all the other crypto companies out there. But maybe there are better ways to do that?

Absolutely. In the crypto world, it's important to be innovative, but also responsible. This stunt might teach other projects to think carefully about how their marketing can affect people's trust in their technology.