Best friends from Vancouver decided to host their own rally about face masks this month.
Instead of waging war against wearing them, the group stood near anti-maskers protesting on Sept. 5 to hand them out.
“We thought it would be funny if we pulled a prank on a group called Hugs Over Masks... so we decided to show up as the Masks Over Hugs,” remarked a narrator of their YouTube video.
The masked men set up a booth at Kitsilano Beach.
“We did the two things the group [Hugs Over Masks] hates the most: hand out free masks to the public and praise Bonnie Henry,” said one of the anti-protestors, who wishes to remain anonymous for safety reasons.
They used a megaphone and a picture of Henry's face to encourage the public to don face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Do it for Bonnie," a member said while his friend gave out a face mask to a passerby.
"We thought it would bring some laughs to such depressing times," the group told Vancouver Is Awesome.
"What better way to do it than to a group that is claiming the government is giving false information when this group itself is just misinforming people."
Mitch, one of the mask-positive pranksters, spoke on camera that he thinks countering the protest was one of his best life decisions to date.
“We’ve got masks for anybody. We’ve got masks for babies. We’ve got masks for dogs,” his friend said. “Come on down.”
At one point a Vancouver police officer came to inspect that the group wasn’t selling the masks.
On his way out, the officer seemed to approve of what they were doing.
