Facebook hair-dare group that grew out of control

When two friends started a group on Facebook aiming to reach 10,000 people, little did they realise what they had gotten themselves into.

The group, called Simon Mallia Must Shave His Hair If 10,000 People Join This Group, started out after his friends thought it would be cool to start a campaign on the popular social networking website Facebook to get Mr Mallia to shave his curly hair. Mr Mallia agreed, little knowing what his friends were capable of.

Within hours of frantic promotion, the online group was already in its hundreds, and within less than two weeks it had reached more than 8,500 members.

Having thousands of strangers joining a group, however, was not without its consequences. Darryl Gouder, one of the group's main promoters, recounted what happened.

"At first it was good humoured and good-natured - Simon is a popular guy and he was enjoying this prank. So long as there were his friends posting funny comments on the discussion board, it was alright," he said.

Things started getting uncomfortable, however, when people who did not know Mr Mallia started joining the group, exposing him to a notoriety which was new to him.

"It had reached a stage where I couldn't go to school or to Paceville without having strangers point at me and mimicking scissor movements," Mr Mallia complained. After this newspaper ran an article covering this group's rapid growth, its administrators faced the realisation that what had started out as a dare between friends had turned into something bigger. They immediately sought to tone it down by asking members to leave the Facebook group - a tough call, but Mr Mallia got to keep his locks after all.

"It was really fun at the beginning, when we started promoting the group aggressively - to the point of 'spamming' our friends," Mr Gouder said.

They closed the group, meaning no one could enter without the administrators' approval, and after a report to the Facebook administration it was deleted.

"When we saw Simon getting uncomfortable with so much attention, we figured out our friendship was bigger than any dare, no matter how impressive the feat would have been," Mr Gouder added.