At work on Monday morning, the two Brazilians who sit next to Lucas Shanks were speaking rapid-fire Portuguese. It would occur to Mr. Shanks later that they might have been plotting against him at that very moment, but, as he pointed out, he is 24, a bit naïve, from Minnesota and a devoted follower of Twitter.
Taken together, these were all factors that made him vulnerable to one of history’s most successful cyberpranks.
A copywriter with the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency in Midtown, Mr. Shanks had been meaning to ask his Brazilian colleagues about a mysterious Portuguese phrase he had seen posted on Twitter for several days: “Cala Boca Galvão.” It was one of the top trending topics on Twitter, meaning that thousands of people were passing it along every hour.
He called out to Thiago Cardoso, an associate creative director at the agency, who grew up in Brazil.
“What is this cali-bing-gala?” Mr. Shanks asked, mangling the words.
“You mean Cala Boca Galvão?” Mr. Cardoso, 29, said. “You really don’t know, dude? Let me show you something.”
“Help us save the Galvão birds,” the announcer said, his voice seeming to come right out of a BBC broadcast.
The rare Galvão bird, native to Brazil, was endangered, he continued. About 300,000 a year were slaughtered for their feathers during Carnival. Climate change was killing more. But there was hope: a scientist had a project to rescue the birds. Amazingly, anyone could help — just by putting up a post on Twitter.
“Every tweet with Cala Boca Galvão generates a donation of 10 cents to the Galvão Birds Foundation,” the video announcer said. “One second to tweet. One second to save a life. Galvão Institute. For a better world.”