Rest in peace, Whopper Sacrifice

Gawker reports that Whopper Sacrifice didn't make the week:

After Facebook pulled the email notification to users who got defriended by WS, BK pulled WS in response.

I mean, yeah, probably a bad idea to have those email notifications, especially if it's people you don't know that well. I mean, can you imagine being a freshman at Annenberg and seeing the person who defriended you (you totally recognized him from his profile picture)? Or eventually getting housed with him? Awkies, especially when they bring it up. (And it definitely happens. One girl stared me down in Annenberg last year and told me she recognized me because I defriended her before we came to school. But I have a few responses to that: one, I didn't really friend anyone I didn't know before I stepped on the Harvard campus, two, I don't really reject or defriend friend requests from mass frosh-frienders - of which she was one - and three, she totally defriended me over the summer. Not that, like, my freshman self or anything is bitter about it, but she sure is.)

But at the same time, the Angry Whopper advertising hinged on its viral edge: that the people who got defriended would now know about the Angry Whopper, and defriend their friends too. Of course, a lot of people worked the system, thanks to the Facebook groups and Craigslist ads looking for fast (food) friends interested in a good ol' Whopper defriend.

Although the math doesn't work out: more than 230,000 friends were removed by 82,000 users. This means the average number of friends removed was less than 3 per person. Maybe people were scared off when they heard that their defriends might recieve emails, but c'mon, you have the app, now get the Whopper. (For the record, I did not friend purge.)