Best friend secretly planned to humiliate the birthday girl with an embarrassing slideshow — she found out beforehand and added one screenshot

A person who goes by the moniker u/Formalin_Fingers was expecting a birthday surprise, but what they actually got was a stab in the back from none other than their best friend. A cousin who was helping this friend organize the surprise revealed that she was planning to embarrass them at their birthday party with private photographs. On the D-day, they turned the tables by adding some of their own paraphernalia among the photographs to put her in her place. Their August 22, 2026 Reddit post has garnered hundreds of upvotes and counting.  

Surprise that backfired

If not for the cousin, the author would have been left shocked by the humiliation their friend had planned for their birthday party. The friend decided it would be the best birthday surprise to share "a bunch of embarrassing and personal things" the Redditor had shared over the years as a slideshow. The cousin thought it wasn’t the right thing to do, so she messaged the person and spilled the beans. They were naturally furious, but instead of confronting their "best friend" right away, they planned a surprise of their own.

Turning the tables

On the day of the party, the friend played the slideshow, starting harmlessly before getting into the embarrassing stuff. Everyone at the party was laughing, and the Redditor too smiled. The friend, thoroughly enjoying it all, didn't even blink when the Redditor asked if they could share some of the memories they prepared, as well. Lo and behold, "it was a screenshot of her messages planning the whole thing and talking about how funny it would be to see me get embarrassed." The slideshow never got to the end, but the author got their revenge. “Nobody knew what was happening until they read it. I just sat there smiling while she realised what had happened,” they described in the post. As obvious as it may seem in this situation, the author broke the friendship with who they thought was their “best friend.”

Friendships like these can often become victims of gossip, insecurity, and treachery, resulting in distrust, anger, and conflict. A study published in The Journal of Early Adolescence found that 86% of the middle-school students surveyed had experienced at least one friendship breakup, with conflict and betrayal emerging as the most common reasons for the friendships ending.

Wolf in sheep's clothing

Reddit readers expressed surprise over the fact that it was no one else but their “best friend” who attempted to disgrace them in front of others. Others contemplated the meaning of friendship that this friend left strangled behind a question mark. u/LibraryMouse4321 commented, “You should have added embarrassing things about your friend (ex-friend) to your presentation.” u/Pristine-Pen09885 said, “People like that don’t learn,” and added, “She’ll keep doing that, and once in a while somebody will expose her, pay her back with a mean trick, or who knows what they’ll come up with. Like you, people get angry when someone does things like that, and sometimes they get very angry. I hope you get to hear about it when she gets other comeuppances.”

More on Scoop Upworthy

Senior class pulls off epic prank on their teacher by having a surprise sleepover at her house. She had no idea until she woke up the next morning

Mom drove her kids to a big house and asked if they liked it. She then revealed the surprise: "It's ours"

He asked his office not to throw him a birthday party. They did it anyway and then fired him — a judge just made them pay $450k