The Apple Wave was a series of trolling posts that suggested Apple had somehow invented microwave charging, and even more impressively, it had somehow made this available to Apple phones via a software update. The troll was legendary. It echoes even today.
The Goal
An anonymous message board known for incredible coordination gets the idea to put together Apple Wave, a fake advertisement campaign. As stated above, Apple Wave tells users that they can now microwave their phone to charge it. It wasn’t an immediate success; the successful version was several iterations deep as they all cobbled together legitimate looking campaign images from their collective skill, and off they went.
The Term “Life Hack”
It’s more important to say this now than ever: if the information doesn’t come from a respected source, don’t try it before researching. Google’s AI is doing it’s best, but is frequently wrong. ChatGPT is frequently wrong. You could seriously harm yourself if you simply listen to some random text image or Facebook post with no source. Remember that big explosion of people testing hacks on Youtube? That’s because for a while, life-hack folks were able to get away with just doing stuff or saying things that sound plausible but were usually useless – or dangerous in the worst cases. Nobody pictures molten caramel and a drill when they hear cotton candy, but hack channels slapped the two together. Sugar burns! How about popping popcorn in incredibly flimsy, cut up soda cans? Oil burns!
But oftentimes nobody wants to be wrong in the comments by calling it out – maybe the hack really did work, and they screwed it up. On the troll post side, many of them are tedious or annoying; nobody wanted to spend time on something that doesn’t work only so that they can say it doesn’t work with complete certainty. That caramel hack, for example, would mean getting a drill out, buying caramel candies if you don’t have them on hand, melting them in a pan (that you also have to wash), and either tending to your burns afterwards or trying to get a bad impression of sugar floss off the insides of a cardboard box, for what? Worse cotton candy? Cotton candy that is worse than the candy that went into making it? You’re going to go through all that because you know it doesn’t work and you want to prove it? To strangers?
The Youtuber trend of trying hacks might be annoying to some people, but at least someone is trying these things to verify that they don’t work.
Plausibility – “Nobody Made You Microwave Your Phone”
Back to the Apple Wave campaign. Plausible information is a perfect way to get people to do something they’d never normally do – common sense says you don’t put metal in a microwave, but the fake ad was so compelling people did it anyway. Their brains simply glazed over all of the barriers that would normally stop them from doing something like that in the face of a seemingly legit Apple ad. Even after nearly two decades of iPhones, the tech in a smartphone seems totally opaque to the average user, and it’s difficult to blame them for assuming someone else knows their device better than they do. Apple has their Genius Bar for a reason, after all.
“Plausible”
It only takes a few seconds in a microwave to seriously damage a phone. A microwave works by shooting microwaves inside the box, where they reflect off the metal walls until they hit your food. This transfers the energy from the waves and causes the food molecules to heat up. When microwaves hit the phone, they either bounce off in a way they’re not supposed to (which causes sparks) or successfully hit the components. That causes electrical discharge, which is bad for everything inside the phone. It can also cause battery rupture. If you remember that Samsung battery issue a few years back, you’ve seen how destructive lithium batteries are when the insides are exposed to air.
Red Flags
Some red flags you should look for when discovering information: Did it come straight from the suggested source (like the Apple website)? Or did you find it in a graphic somewhere else (like Facebook or Instagram)?
When you try to verify, is the information possible to find? Or does it seem like the graphic is the only source of the info?
Are any people mentioned actually real?
Is it possible the picture you’re looking at has been AI generated?
Does it make sense with what you already know about that object?
Does it make sense that you’ve never seen or heard of the hack before, or haven’t thought of it yourself?
Are there special instructions in the comments to make the hack ‘work’ that were left out of the graphic?
Are the comments split into complete agreement and complete disagreement, where one party is insisting it works completely and the other is warning people NOT to try the hack under any circumstances?
If so, it might be a troll post.
