One successful OMGASM mission was called COLBERTGASM. Our goal was simple: to get Stephen Colbert to use a certain code word on TV. We figured that this task is probably impossible for most individuals, but a dedicated group of people might succeed.

On his TV show, Stephen Colbert occasionally expresses a desire to join the Illuminati, the secret conspiracy which allegedly controls all Western culture. In Robert Anton Wilson's Illuminatus! Trilogy, the Illuminati and the Discordian Society are polar opposites. I felt it was an amusing twist to encourage Discordians to masquerade as Illuminati to win over a faux-conservative like Stephen Colbert. Our operatives were instructed to write to Colbert on behalf of the Bavarian Illuminati and offer him a position within their conspiracy. To accept this station, he would have to use an Illuminati code-word on the air during the week of March 5th. We supplied him with several possible code-words to choose from (including the infamous "23 Skidoo").

We knew that most mail doesn't actually reach Colbert, it's read and thrown away by his staff. We felt that flooding him with snail-mail would be necessary. We estimate that during our "buzz week", he received some 200 pieces of mail.

The mission was a success - he dropped at least five of our code words on the air, confirming that he was listening and he was in on the joke. Beyond the obvious success of our mission, the underlying triumph lay in motivating and organizing numerous operatives. Not only did we accomplish our original goal, but we conquered the usual entropies that plague group actions.

In later months, I would invest the energy gained from Colbertgasm's success into other projects. I knew that if all those people felt like they had some ownership of the prank, they would be more likely to participate in future projects. We have a clip of Stephen Colbert leaning in towards the camera and saying "23 Skidoo" - this trophy represents one of our major victories in uniting pranksters under the same banner, and has become a lightning rod to recruit others.