Maltese Man Pays €100 to Skip iPhone Queue: Internet Erupts Over Sliema Stunt

Watch: The Man Who Paid €100 to Skip the Queue for the New iPhone – A Very Maltese Tech Frenzy
By Hot Malta Staff

Sliema’s Tower Road was already sticky with September humidity when the video dropped: a TikTok clip showing a Maltese twenty-something in board shorts and €3 espresso in hand, slipping a purple €100 note to the security guard outside the iStore and waltzing straight to the front of the 200-metre queue for the iPhone 15 Pro Max. Within 30 minutes the hashtag #100euroskip had more local views than the last Eurovision final, and by sunset every kazin from Marsa to Mellieħa was arguing about whether the stunt was genius, disgraceful, or simply “so Maltese”.

The queue itself was a ritual as familiar to the island as the festa fireworks that crackled overhead the night before. Students had camped since 4 a.m. on cardboard ripped from takeaway boxes, remote workers tethered to Melita hotspots balanced laptops on suitcases, and one Gozitan couple turned the wait into a mini-honeymoon, toasting with cans of Cisk bought from the nearby petrol station. Apple’s global hype machine has long reached Malta, but here it collides with a uniquely insular social code: everyone knows everyone, and cutting in line is tantamount to skipping communion.

Enter “Luke” (he asked us not to use his surname, fearing his nanna’s wrath). The 26-year-old igaming analyst from Żebbuġ told Hot Malta he had a flight to Copenhagen at noon and couldn’t miss the delivery of a new phone he needs for shooting travel vlogs. “I calculated the cost of my time versus the hundred euros,” he shrugged outside Departures, gold chain glinting. “In Malta, everything is negotiable.” The security guard—an outsourced contractor earning minimum wage—apparently agreed, pocketing the note and lifting the barrier while onlookers gasped and phones whipped out.

By evening, the footage had been stitched, memed and set to Gaia’s “Ta’ Bita X’Jien”. One parody replaced the €100 with a pastizz, another dubbed the guard’s voice with a classic “Ejja, ħa nipprova nifhem”. The iStore issued a terse statement condemning “queue-jumping of any kind” and promising an internal review, but stopped short of cancelling Luke’s purchase. Apple itself remained silent, leaving Maltese social media to conduct its own trial.

Cultural anthropologist Dr. Marcelle Azzopardi, who lectures at UoM, sees the episode as a microcosm of islander resourcefulness. “We’ve spent centuries finding loopholes—whether it’s getting round Knights’ taxes, British rationing, or EU import rules. Slip the port worker a carton of cigarettes, and your container moves faster. Luke’s €100 is the digital-age update.” Yet she warns the stunt also exposes growing inequality. “When apartments cost €400k, a casual hundred is loose change to some and a week’s wage to others. The queue becomes a stage where that gap is suddenly visible.”

Indeed, not everyone laughed. Miriam Camilleri, 19, had queued since 2 a.m. after finishing a night shift at a St Julian’s hotel. “I pay €600 rent in a shared flat. I can’t afford to bribe anyone,” she said, eyes still red from sleeplessness. “He flaunted the rules and still got the titanium finish everyone wanted.” Her tweet, “Your shortcut is my overtime”, racked up 12k likes and sparked a wider conversation about dignity in low-wage jobs.

By the weekend, the frenzy had spilled into real-world action. A spontaneous “pastizz-and-protest” gathering outside the Sliema store on Saturday drew thirty people handing out free pastries and placards reading “Queuing is Qlub”. The iStore responded by handing out chilled Kinnie and discount vouchers, effectively diffusing tension Maltese-style: feed the crowd, fix the mood.

Luke, meanwhile, is somewhere over the Atlantic, probably editing 4K footage on his new Pro Max. Back home, the guard has been reassigned, and Apple enthusiasts are already booking leave for next year’s launch. But the clip will linger as a time-capsule of 2023 Malta: a place where Mediterranean pragmatism meets Silicon Valley hype, where a purple note can buy you fifteen minutes of fame—and a front-row seat to the island’s uneasy relationship with fairness.

As the last camping chair is folded and the cardboard boxes recycled, one thing is clear: in Malta, the queue is never just about the phone. It’s about who we are when we think nobody’s filming—and how quickly we adapt when we realise they are.