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Get A Freaky Text? Don't Worry It Was THE BLACK PHONE 2

In June, many entertainment nerds checked their phones to discover a rather eerie text—that felt like… something out of a horror movie. The text of this mysterious outreach read, "Hello YOUR NAME – the phone is ringing again. Are you going to answer?" (Or, in my case, "Hello Rotem – the phone is ringing again. Are you going to answer?") After it was done threatening me with a phone call, this text message added a video with an unsettling black and white cover image, which featured three pictures of young boys. No further context came with this video message unless I pressed play. It's also worth noting that the text came from a totally ordinary phone number that brought up nothing when googled.

Uhm… Was this absolutely terrifying? Did I think that if I pressed play, I'd see some sort of horrifyingly gory video and then a ghost would come out and tell me I had seven days to live? YES. Absolutely. In panic mode, I swiped and deleted the message. And so, it turns out, did many of my co-workers. It's only when I took to the internet that I realized that his terrifying text FELT like a horror movie because it was from a horror movie. Yes, I had been text-menaced by The Black Phone 2.

Nerdist

In context, I can now see how the copy of The Black Phone 2's scary text does indicate it's from the movie. "The phone is ringing again, etc." But it seems like my survival instincts, and those of the people around me, are pretty strong. Because my answer to "Are you going to answer?" was decidedly no. Although retrospectively, I appreciate that The Black Phone 2's text campaign made me feel like I was in a horror movie. At the time, it was a totally unnecessary jump scare on a Friday night! I can applaud the immersive nature of The Black Phone's outreach, but I do wish a follow-up text had come a little sooner.

Nerdist

Now, a few months later, I must report that The Black Phone 2 got me AGAIN! Once again, I received the following text from a totally innocent number: "What do you think happens when you die?" EXCUSE ME? I'm going to go ahead and say this second follow-up has even LESS context than the first. And was even freakier. It's never a good time for a strange number to bring up death to you. Dear, Black Phone 2—stop!… But don't stop.

Universal Pictures/Blumhouse

Happily, both times context did eventually come, and The Black Phone 2 followed up by sending links to its trailer and a poster via the same number it sent the original text. But for a minute there, I really thought a murderer was watching me. But I guess it's better than if The Black Phone had committed a true act of horror and… called me on the phone.

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Originally published on June 2, 2025.

Flood Of Prank IMessage Texts Proves The App Can Be Easily Crashed

On Friday, The Next Web reported that a group of iOS developers were experiencing rapid-fire texts over iMessage, causing bothersome and repetitious messages and notifications. The prank wasn't serious on the level of, say, a full-scale DDoS of a bank website, and concern over spam via iMessage is not new either. But the unwanted messages were fresh proof of some problems with the iMessage app—specifically the lack of good spam-detection or a way for users to block a message sender.

One of the recipients of the spam, an iOS jailbreak tool and app developer who goes by the moniker iH8sn0w, informed The Next Web of the prank when it happened. IH8sn0w told Ars over Twitter that he simply disabled the handle that was getting flooded. "It's just a bunch of kids bored playing with AppleScript," he said.

Another app and extension developer for iOS devices, Grant Paul, revealed on Twitter that he was getting spammed with very large messages causing his iMessage app to crash. "The iMessage spammer has now completely locked me out of my iOS Messages app, by sending long strings of Unicode chars. Definitely a DoS," Paul wrote on his Twitter account. Ars reached out to Paul but has not yet heard back from him.

Epic Reddit Prank "Cat Facts" Is Now An App That Lets You Text Troll Your Friends

What do you get when you combine cats and epic-level trolling? Only one of the most popular Reddit posts of all time: the hilarious "Cat Facts" prank from Reddit user "frackyou" is the eighth-most popular post on Reddit, and now it's a mobile app you can use to automate cat facts-style pranking on your unsuspecting friends.

Cat Facts? What's Cat Facts, you say?

In case you somehow missed it, Cat Facts refers to this prank, posted here on Reddit a couple of years ago. According to the original poster, his little cousin had shared his new phone number on Facebook, and was soon the recipient of unwanted texts which purported to be from some automated service called "Cat Facts," but were really from his older cousin.

In a series of screenshots, you can see the prank's victim go from confused to frustrated to downright angry as he can't seem to figure out how to get the texts to stop, despite following the prompts to unsubscribe, sometimes involving typing in long strings of numbers. In the meantime, Cat Facts like this stream in:

Welcome to Cat Facts! Did you know that the first cat show was held in 1871 at the Crystal Palace in London? Mee-wow!

Recently, this classic prank has re-emerged as a mobile app you can use to send Cat Facts to your friends. (Because surely by now there's an entirely new crop of mobile tweens who have yet to encounter the Cat Facts meme – or text trolling in general.)

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Cat Facts creator Kyle Venn says he's not the original Reddit user "frackyou," and didn't reach out to him before creating this because that user was no longer active, and also, because it seems by the comments on the original post that "frackyou" actually got the idea from another Redditor who liked that his idea was being used.

Venn, a web developer by background, says he began building the app two years ago as a way to teach himself Android development.

"I never had any intention of actually releasing it to the App Store and did it mostly to get better as a developer. It seemed like a fun idea that would leverage a bunch of sweet technologies that I wasn't too familiar with — like SMS APIs, Android design standards, [and] automation," he explains. Later, after a few mobile development internships, Venn realized how poorly the app was built so he decided to revisit it.

"After rewriting it a few times and making it look a little prettier, I figured it could be something that other people on the internet might enjoy," he says.

Oh yes, the Internet would enjoy this. We sorta have this thing for cats here.

Unfortunately, in this "official version" of Cat Facts, the app has to remain legally compliant, so it includes the way to unsubscribe in the first message. (Bummer.)

The app currently sustains itself through in-app purchases that let you send more than the first five facts, which are free.

A few of the comments on Google Play reference a problem with texts not going through, which could have you thinking that the person being epic-trolled this time is you, but Venn says he tracked the issue down.

It was related to him hitting the limit on the number of text messages the app could send per second: "An issue I'd never thought I'd have," he says. "[The] Server hit 100% multiple times during first two days…I've  since fixed it by distributing the load of the sending to several different phone numbers."

Believe it or not, this isn't actually the first time Cat Facts has been made into an app. But it's the best-looking attempt to date.

h/t: ReadWrite / PopSugar; image credit, imgur

Sarah has worked as a reporter for TechCrunch since August 2011. She joined the company after having previously spent over three years at ReadWriteWeb. Prior to her work as a reporter, Sarah worked in I.T. Across a number of industries, including banking, retail and software.

You can contact or verify outreach from Sarah by emailing sarahp@techcrunch.Com or via encrypted message at sarahperez.01 on Signal.

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