John Legere, the leader of T-Mobile, is known as a bit of a prankster in the tech community, and his latest joke fully shows it by targeting rival carrier AT&T.
Star Wars fans are probably aware that on May 4 a lot of geekiness - thanks to the verbal pun "May the Fourth be with you" - get passed around. Those who are familiar with T-Mobile's take on things also know that Legere humorously refers to main competitor AT&T as the Death Star, because of the resemblance between the carrier's logo and the iconic spaceship.
T-Mobile launched a Chrome extension that makes any webpage where AT&T is present a lot funnier. The extension changes every AT&T name on a page to "The DeATTh Star." It not only modifies the text, but also adds a tiny Death Star icon after the nicknamed company.
If you want to have a blast, check out the AT&T's Twitter page or the official website after you load the mocking extension.
Test it out on your desktop or laptop computer by going to the official source.
In tone with the lighthearted humor that celebrates the Star Wars universe, T-Mobile published photos with its own executives disguised as characters from the fictional world. Chewbacca rocks a magenta hat that purportedly belongs to Braxton Carter, the CFO of T-Mobile, while COO Mike Sievert embodies Luke Skywalker. Obi-Wan Kenobi's role went to CTO Neville Ray, while John Legere kept the epic character Han Solo for himself.
There was much room left for mockery, as rival executives could have been portrayed as Ewoks or other funny-looking creatures from Star Wars. This simply shows that Legere's PR team was tasteful enough to limit the jokes to self-irony ... and to the hilarious extension that we described above.
T-Mobile encourages users who install the Chrome extension and publish the resulting images on social media, along with the hashtag #DeATThStar.
Legere hinted that a number of freebies could be in tow for those who give it a go and publish screenshots. Some may find making fun of AT&T's bloated logo an incentive in itself.
It is not the first time that T-Mobile has its rival in its grinning sights. Earlier this year, the magenta carrier created a drinking game based on AT&T's earnings report.
