It's 2016, and as silly as it sounds at first, one of the greatest signs of trust in a friendship is sharing your phone's passcode. It's an intimate gesture: your friend trusts you to change the music while she's driving or to text someone back when her hands are full or to freely look up an answer on Wikipedia in the heat of an argument.
If you have a smartphone, you don't really have a choice but to put your life in the thing — bank account info, embarrassing pictures, secret conversations and all. And when someone else trusts you to not mess with any of that information, that's a pretty special thing.
If you're at the point in a friendship where you are trusted with your friend's passcode, then you're also probably at the point where you know what is appropriate to do on her phone... such as innocent pranks.
On one hand, there is certainly a line not to be crossed and a trust not to be breached, but on the other hand, the "lol HACKED" Facebook posts and the hundreds upon hundreds of selfies might be too mainstream for you.
So here are 10 creative ways to innocently mess with your best friend's phone:
(I've mostly only tested these on Android phones since that's what my friend and I both use. I'm sure most of these can apply to Apple devices as well. And if not ... well, get on our level?)
1. Follow one or two random Instagram accounts.
My friend and I joke about cats a lot. So it only felt natural that I opened up her Instagram and followed a cat page. Her reaction as she opened up Insta and, four hours and three cat video likes later, realized what was happening was priceless.
2. Go ahead and follow a couple on Twitter, too.
Twitter has some really random pages. It takes a certain sense of humor to find the pages funny, but I love them and think they're perfect to follow on a friend's phone to make her wonder what on earth is happening.
3. Take lots of pictures on Snapchat, and send them to the friend's own username.
For some strange reason, this is an option on Snapchat. You can send snaps to yourself, which, in my opinion, is Snapchat simply inviting you to prank your best friend. Send her endless snaps of you (or of her, if she's in the same room as you), and send them all to her for her to find and open later.
4. Screw up the most recently used emojis.
While I was sending those 500 seconds' worth of snaps, I went ahead and used a bunch of really inconvenient emojis. The emojis that you look at and think, "When would anyone use these?" Well, I use them. When I need useless emojis to ever-so-mildly inconvenience my best friend by clearing away her most recent emojis list.
5. Switch the location of two apps on the home screen.
Another mild inconvenience. We all get used to the positions of our apps, so it's just a small, "Dang it, Jazmine" when my friend notices that apps have been switched.
6. Add a bunch of new, blank pages on the home screen.
Add as many blank pages onto her home screen as her phone allows. It just causes a mild "Why would you do this?"
7. Put picture frames on the home screen.
There's a widget option (on Android at least) where you can choose pictures from the gallery to put in a stationary "picture frame" on the home screen. If, in the past, you've taken hundreds of selfies on this friend's phone, now is the time to use them. Frame them on your friend's home screen for all to see.
7. Also, put as many clocks, weather updates, and other useless widgets as possible on the home screen.
Widgets are a thing (more so on Android than on Apple) that serve very little purpose in the actual use of your phone, but you can use them to your advantage in your pranking. Fill up all those extra blank home screens with unneeded widgets. Get creative with it!
8. Download a few random pictures on her phone.
Leave some memes here and there deep in the picture folders for your friend to stumble upon later and laugh at.
9. Change the wallpaper to something weird and random.
This is sort of a classic. Get a good and random picture to change the wallpaper to. I typically go for really close up pictures of dogs' or cats' faces (examples above). I don't know why. I guess it's just what speaks to me.
10. Leave love notes EVERYWHERE.
This is your best friend. You spend time with each other and trust each other. You have the very kind of relationship that human beings are created for. The phone-sharing thing is just a gross millennial way to manifest that love and trust.
Whether or not you tell her enough to her face how much you love her: tell her in secret notes on her phone. Silly feelings are sometimes the most real ones, so empty your heart in the silliest of ways on your friend's phone. Remind her of little moments between the two of you which you hold dear. Remind her she's important to you.
