Latest revision as of 16:01, 6 October 2008

Whether or not you choose to acknowledge it, the world in which we live is abundant in absurdity. Sometimes, when day-to-day life becomes too methodical, too predictable, people find themselves tuning out the weirdness and passively continuing on around it. Some have never even noticed the elephant brigade in society’s living room. Others thrive on the absurd, but are starved for it. They find themselves alienated, freaks in a society of complacent zombies.

I have long felt a personal obligation to highlight the weirdness in the world around me. A few years ago, I was swimming in a lake, when a man in a full three-piece suit pulled up along the water and stepped out of his car. Casually, without removing his shoes or any of his clothing, he walked into the water until it was up to his neck. He turned towards me, and explained, “I do this every day.” He shrugged, walked out of the water, and drove away, soaking wet. The man revealed to me something strange that I hadn’t seen before. It threw me out of my own box and inspired me to stop hiding my own weirdness from those around me. Knowing that there were others out there, other freaks, other casual promoters of the strange, I exhaled.

Over the years, I’ve met many others like me, who share the same desire for High Weirdness. In early 2008, a call to action was launched, urging Discordians and the like to team up and work as a community on projects geared toward this sort of promotion. The ongoing project is called “OMGASM”, or Operation: Mindfuck - Golden Apple Seed Mission. Here’s how you play: anyone can create a Golden Apple Seed Mission. Once a GASM is created, (and promoted), networks of people can join in on the fun and run with the mission. We’re looking to throw people out of their boxes, to surprise them with unpredictability, to force them to confront what they may not understand, and let other freaks know that we’re out there, pranking, laughing, and making the strangeness of this world a bit more overt. Having a team of people working towards a goal allows for large-scale mindfucks, and so far, the OMGASM project has delivered quite well.

“ColbertGASM” consisted of a mass snail mail letter writing campaign to TV personality Stephen Colbert, inviting him into the Bavarian Illuminati. To accept the invitation, Colbert was instructed to say certain code words on the air. Letters poured in from all over the world. Shortly after the project’s letter writing week, in the middle of an interview, he leaned into the camera a little bit and slowly said “23 skidoo.” Those involved with Colbert Mission knew that they’d accomplished their goal. Though this in-joke was invisible to outsiders, the Discordian Society had worked together to create it. We had established an in-joke between our secret society and one of our mascots. Colbert is on our side. The OMGASM network worked.

“PosterGASM” is an ongoing game that you can play. The mission is simple - hang up posters in cities, buildings - anywhere they will be seen. The project website states the objective: “Modify your environment. Reclaim public spaces. Surprise people out of their daily rut. Encourage creative thought.” The posters can include images, jokes, odd slogans, general nonsense, or anything else that you feel like affixing to a surface and leaving for somebody else to find. It's incredibly easy, surprisingly fun, and works at any scale at any location.*

The best thing about the project is that anyone can start a Golden Apple Seed Mission and invite others around the world to play along. Using the magic of the web, you can search for magic words like “OMGASM” and “Golden Apple Seed Mission” and find others who want help with their projects. This allows a great opportunity for weirdness-lovers everywhere to collaborate, and to go out and do something together, and really shake shit up. Need more chaos in your everyday? OMGASM is giving you the opportunity to make it happen.

This is the information age.

We have the technology.

We have the know-how.

We have the networks.

We have You, Mr. Big-Time-Person-of-the-Year.

Go ahead, start something big.