- Seniors from Pasadena, Maryland, unleashed a prank on the community
- They put up a banner declaring that a Trader Joe’s would arrive in 2025
- Many on social media admitted they had been duped.
A group of high school seniors managed to trick their town into believing they would soon be buying a Trader Joe’s by putting up a banner declaring that the beloved grocery chain was “coming soon.”
Like many high schools in the U.S., the class of Northeast High School in Pasadena, Maryland, traditionally plays an annual prank on its community, which has 24,000 residents.
This year, they raised the hopes of many residents with a fake banner announcing that a Trader Joe’s location would be operational in the spring of 2025.
While Trader Joe’s has 10 of its nearly 600 locations in the Old Line State, unfortunately none are in the city of Pasadena, although the closest location, Annapolis, is just under a 25-minute drive away.
One town had hopes of having a Trader Joe’s in the spring of 2025 after high school seniors placed a fake sign near an empty lot.
Word soon spread on social media that it had all been a joke, although even those fooled appreciated the joke.
When passersby scanned the QR code on the fake banner, they were taken to the music video for Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up, aka Rickrolled, a telltale sign that the promise of Trader Joe’s was merely an illusion. .
Maryland local Marlena Calobong broke the news of Trader Joe’s antics on Facebook, writing: ‘To my friends in Pasadena… Yesterday the senior class at our local high school pulled a prank on the ENTIRE city! !
‘They hung a banner in front of a vacant grocery store property that said ‘Coming Soon: Trader Joes’ with a QR code that makes you Rick-Rolls (‘I’ll Never Leave You’ by Rick Astley).
Yesterday morning the whole town was in an uproar, thinking we were going to buy a Trader Joe’s!
‘And again this morning finding out it was just a joke… Well, they got us all!!! ‘That was a good one!!!’
And this news left people devastated.
‘Haha, disappointing, but oh well. I guess it’s all fun,” one person commented.
“Children can be so cruel,” a second joked, adding a laughing face emoji.
Trader Joe’s has 10 of its nearly 600 national locations in Maryland, but the closest to Pasadena is in Annapolis, just under a 25-minute drive.
Local real estate agent Alyssa Smith admitted she was among those who were fooled and congratulated the elders on the skillfully executed prank.
‘Nice clean joke! Way to go!’ a third praised.
However, another continued to hold out hope, chiming in: ‘I have a funny feeling that the merchants are going to find out how excited everyone on Facebook was yesterday to get one in our area and that they’ll put one up here.’ Just say.’
Local real estate agent Alyssa Smith took to TikTok to applaud seniors and admitted she, too, had been fooled by the signs.
“Well played, Northeast High School seniors,” he praised the students.
“If you’re a victim of the senior’s joke about a Trader Joe’s coming to Pasadena, raise your hand,” he added with his hand raised.
He further explained that they had put the banner in the “Mars parking lot, which has been empty for years.”
Alyssa may have been referring to the former location of the now-defunct Mars Supermarkets. According Supermarket newsMars closed its Pasadena location in 2015.
Additionally, he speculated that the children had perhaps embraced some intergenerational orientation to the project, given the aspect of the Rickroll, an Internet joke that goes back years.
‘These kids had to have had help from older millennials or Generation X because how do they even know what a rickroll is?’ she speculated.
‘Well then. Too funny.