1914 Facebook Post
A lot was going on in 1914. The World was going to war. More importantly, bait companies were starting to produce muskie baits.
Can you imagine what life would have been like for them if they had social media platforms?
Do you know what a Waffle is? Not the breakfast food...
It's a raffle-like activity that takes place primarily in Facebook groups. It's big in the musky bait community. Let's say you have an item to sell and you'd like to get $100 for it.
You post it for sale and determine the number of spots you'd like to offer...so for example...You could offer 10 spots @ $10/spot. When the waffle is full, a group moderator uses random.org to generate a random number that corresponds to a lucky winner. The winner PayPal's the $$$ to the seller, and the bait/item ships.
Apparently you couldn't use the word "raffle" on Facebook, as it then becomes an illegal gambling operation. So nearly all Waffles state "No Purchase Necessary" or "npn" for short....you generally state what shipping you include in the waffle spot price...like if you see "US buys CAN flys" that has become an abbreviated term for US shipping is on the seller but Canadian shipping adds extra to be paid by the winner.
I know a guy who is like addicted to these things...when a waffle comes out he posts "RANDO!!" sometimes buying up numerous random spots to be picked by the seller. He spends a lot, and wins a lot....then he's broke 2 weeks later and is selling the baits he won in order to put gas in his truck.
Anyways...I wondered what a Facebook post for a vintage Waffle might have looked like...and I was just messing around in Adobe Illustrator one day and came up with this. Read the testimonials if you really want to capture the spirit. I tried to write the way folks may have corresponded back then...
You may not appreciate the over-dramatized fictions...like catching 22 muskies in a day, all over 80 lb. (69lb. is the controversial world record....fishing in 80+ degree water, snagging the poor spawning fish, eating the muskies, using a gaff hook (all of them a no-no).
