title: Reddit’s fake-swipe prank: someone clicked, someone else claimed to lick description: A October 26, 2026 r/Multifandom discussion about fandom running jokes derailed into a fake-swipe image prank and an escalating comment chain. Here is what the public replies actually show.
On October 26, 2026, a post in Reddit’s r/Multifandom asked which joke gets repeated endlessly in a fandom. The replies soon demonstrated an answer of their own: suggest adding a fake swipe to a picture, let someone fall for it, then let the comments become stranger than the trick.
A picture pretending to be a gallery
A fake-swipe image imitates the visual cues of a multi-image post—dots, arrows or a slide counter—even though there is no next slide. The viewer tries to move to a picture that does not exist. This is an established Reddit gag, with older examples in communities devoted to the trick. The precise contents of the reply image in this particular thread could not be independently inspected; the public text replies are the evidence for what participants said happened.
The comment section adds its own sequel
One reply proposed adding a fake swipe. Another supplied an image, and a participant reported clicking it, with mock irritation. The next person did not merely claim to click: they claimed to lick. A further reply switched into third-person commentary, announcing that the other person had licked it. Suddenly the joke had a narrator.
Another reader admitted falling for the trick and wanting to reuse it. Someone announced they would not be fooled again, only to receive a deadpan question about what they were supposedly avoiding. These are paraphrases of identifiable public replies dated October 26, not a claim about how all Reddit users reacted.
Original comic extension: the touchscreen help desk
The following exchange is invented for this article, not quoted from Reddit.
Agent: “You say the second picture will not open?” Customer: “I swiped three times.” Agent: “That arrow is part of the photograph.” Customer: “What if someone licked the screen?” Agent: “I can troubleshoot a touchscreen. I cannot troubleshoot that decision.” Customer: “Could you at least leave a comment?”
Why the escalation works
The first surprise is interface confusion: a decorative mark masquerades as a working control. The second is social: victims volunteer to become the next pranksters. Finally, the wordplay abandons any plausible troubleshooting, while keeping the serious tone of an incident report. A thread asking people to describe repetitive fandom jokes ends up performing one in real time.
Bottom line: There was no next picture. There was, apparently, no limit to the next reply.
References (2)
- Original r/Multifandom thread and public replies, October 26, 2026
- Earlier r/iswiped example, March 2026, for background Scope: Publicly indexed post and comment text was reviewed; the full image, all replies and view counts were not independently verified.
