News:

One of our core values:  "THEY REFILLED MY RITALIN AND BY THE WAY I WANNA EAT YOUR BEAR HEAD."

Main Menu

Wall Street Journal: The New Pranksters

Started by Cain, September 16, 2008, 06:14:54 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Cain

Well AFAIK, the UPN is now totally removed from Improv Everywhere.  Its merely a meeting ground for pranksters to connect and swap tips and ideas.

Iason Ouabache

QuoteToday's prankster culture has roots in the Vietnam era, a time of social upheaval and political unrest. In 1967, at the height of the war, activist Abbie Hoffman and beat poet Allen Ginsberg organized hundreds of demonstrators to stage a mock levitation of the Pentagon. By chanting and singing outside the building, they said, they'd perform an exorcism and end the war. The stunt was part of a larger demonstration at the Pentagon that drew thousands of people and led to nearly 700 arrests.

One of my friends/former co-workers got arrested at that protest for pissing on the Pentagon.   :lulz: I really should give him my copy of the Principia Discordia.  I don't know if he's ever read it.

Back on topic:  I signed up for the Indana Improv group on The Urban Prankster Network.  I'm not getting my hopes up yet though.
You cannot fathom the immensity of the fuck i do not give.
    \
┌( ಠ_ಠ)┘┌( ಠ_ಠ)┘┌( ಠ_ಠ)┘┌( ಠ_ಠ)┘

Valerie - Gone

I was unaware that there were other "official" groups. I will sign up for Cinci's, if they have one...
People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they're not on your road doesn't mean they've gotten lost.

Let him that would move the world, first move himself. -Socrates

Chairman Risus

There are no such groups in the south, as far as I can tell.

Valerie - Gone

It looks like Cinci may as well not have the four or so groups that it does. I don't think anybody's actually done anything with them. Retarded...
People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they're not on your road doesn't mean they've gotten lost.

Let him that would move the world, first move himself. -Socrates

wlfjstr

When I first heard of these things, the first thing I thought of was the old OM.  It seems like it would be fun, but I tire easily and can't be counted upon to organise these things.

hooplala

"Soon all of us will have special names" — Professor Brian O'Blivion

"Now's not the time to get silly, so wear your big boots and jump on the garbage clowns." — Bob Dylan?

"Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)"
— Walt Whitman

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Cain on September 16, 2008, 06:14:54 PM
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122119092302626987.html

In fact, some advertisers are starting to see the marketing value of pranks. Taco Bell recently hired Mr. Todd to stage a "freeze" in a new restaurant in Flushing, N.Y., where paid extras posing as employees and patrons simply froze in place, baffling the actual customers. The stunt was later used in a viral marketing campaign for the restaurant's Frutista Freeze drink, and a video of the prank has been viewed 500,000 times online, says Taco Bell spokesman Will Bortz. "We thought it was brilliant," he says.


Well, our fangs have been pulled.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

Payne

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on September 18, 2008, 04:54:06 AM
Quote from: Cain on September 16, 2008, 06:14:54 PM
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122119092302626987.html

In fact, some advertisers are starting to see the marketing value of pranks. Taco Bell recently hired Mr. Todd to stage a "freeze" in a new restaurant in Flushing, N.Y., where paid extras posing as employees and patrons simply froze in place, baffling the actual customers. The stunt was later used in a viral marketing campaign for the restaurant's Frutista Freeze drink, and a video of the prank has been viewed 500,000 times online, says Taco Bell spokesman Will Bortz. "We thought it was brilliant," he says.


Well, our fangs have been pulled.

Why oh why didn't someone just collapse and start screaming about parasites in the Frutista eating his brain?

Goddam amateurs.

East Coast Hustle

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on September 18, 2008, 04:54:06 AM
Quote from: Cain on September 16, 2008, 06:14:54 PM
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122119092302626987.html

In fact, some advertisers are starting to see the marketing value of pranks. Taco Bell recently hired Mr. Todd to stage a "freeze" in a new restaurant in Flushing, N.Y., where paid extras posing as employees and patrons simply froze in place, baffling the actual customers. The stunt was later used in a viral marketing campaign for the restaurant's Frutista Freeze drink, and a video of the prank has been viewed 500,000 times online, says Taco Bell spokesman Will Bortz. "We thought it was brilliant," he says.


Well, our fangs have been pulled.

yeah, god forbid we ever reach a position that allows us to exploit and profit from corporate marketers.
Rabid Colostomy Hole Jammer of the Coming Apocalypse™

The Devil is in the details; God is in the nuance.


Some yahoo yelled at me, saying 'GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH', and I thought, "I'm feeling generous today.  Why not BOTH?"

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: East Coast Hustle on September 18, 2008, 12:36:15 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on September 18, 2008, 04:54:06 AM
Quote from: Cain on September 16, 2008, 06:14:54 PM
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122119092302626987.html

In fact, some advertisers are starting to see the marketing value of pranks. Taco Bell recently hired Mr. Todd to stage a "freeze" in a new restaurant in Flushing, N.Y., where paid extras posing as employees and patrons simply froze in place, baffling the actual customers. The stunt was later used in a viral marketing campaign for the restaurant's Frutista Freeze drink, and a video of the prank has been viewed 500,000 times online, says Taco Bell spokesman Will Bortz. "We thought it was brilliant," he says.


Well, our fangs have been pulled.

yeah, god forbid we ever reach a position that allows us to exploit and profit from corporate marketers.

Uh huh.  Then we're "cool" and "cute", until the inevitable media backlash.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Dr. Payne on September 18, 2008, 10:28:08 AM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on September 18, 2008, 04:54:06 AM
Quote from: Cain on September 16, 2008, 06:14:54 PM
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122119092302626987.html

In fact, some advertisers are starting to see the marketing value of pranks. Taco Bell recently hired Mr. Todd to stage a "freeze" in a new restaurant in Flushing, N.Y., where paid extras posing as employees and patrons simply froze in place, baffling the actual customers. The stunt was later used in a viral marketing campaign for the restaurant's Frutista Freeze drink, and a video of the prank has been viewed 500,000 times online, says Taco Bell spokesman Will Bortz. "We thought it was brilliant," he says.


Well, our fangs have been pulled.

Why oh why didn't someone just collapse and start screaming about parasites in the Frutista eating his brain?

Goddam amateurs.

It makes me weep.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

East Coast Hustle

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on September 18, 2008, 03:18:49 PM
Quote from: East Coast Hustle on September 18, 2008, 12:36:15 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on September 18, 2008, 04:54:06 AM
Quote from: Cain on September 16, 2008, 06:14:54 PM
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122119092302626987.html

In fact, some advertisers are starting to see the marketing value of pranks. Taco Bell recently hired Mr. Todd to stage a "freeze" in a new restaurant in Flushing, N.Y., where paid extras posing as employees and patrons simply froze in place, baffling the actual customers. The stunt was later used in a viral marketing campaign for the restaurant's Frutista Freeze drink, and a video of the prank has been viewed 500,000 times online, says Taco Bell spokesman Will Bortz. "We thought it was brilliant," he says.


Well, our fangs have been pulled.

yeah, god forbid we ever reach a position that allows us to exploit and profit from corporate marketers.

Uh huh.  Then we're "cool" and "cute", until the inevitable media backlash.

you forgot "paid".
Rabid Colostomy Hole Jammer of the Coming Apocalypse™

The Devil is in the details; God is in the nuance.


Some yahoo yelled at me, saying 'GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH', and I thought, "I'm feeling generous today.  Why not BOTH?"

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: East Coast Hustle on September 18, 2008, 03:42:59 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on September 18, 2008, 03:18:49 PM
Quote from: East Coast Hustle on September 18, 2008, 12:36:15 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on September 18, 2008, 04:54:06 AM
Quote from: Cain on September 16, 2008, 06:14:54 PM
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122119092302626987.html

In fact, some advertisers are starting to see the marketing value of pranks. Taco Bell recently hired Mr. Todd to stage a "freeze" in a new restaurant in Flushing, N.Y., where paid extras posing as employees and patrons simply froze in place, baffling the actual customers. The stunt was later used in a viral marketing campaign for the restaurant's Frutista Freeze drink, and a video of the prank has been viewed 500,000 times online, says Taco Bell spokesman Will Bortz. "We thought it was brilliant," he says.


Well, our fangs have been pulled.

yeah, god forbid we ever reach a position that allows us to exploit and profit from corporate marketers.

Uh huh.  Then we're "cool" and "cute", until the inevitable media backlash.

you forgot "paid".

If I wanted that kind of pay, I'd go man a glory hole down at the bus station.

Or work for the McCain campaign.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

Cramulus

the commercialization of pranks and situationist theater is the beginning.

Now that it's a way to sell something, it loses some of its power. For those of you who read Transmetropolitan, you'll recall how when they make Spider Jerusalem (a futuristic Hunter S Thompson)  into a product (they make a cartoon, a sitcom, and a soap opera based on his life), a lot of people stop taking him seriously.

I don't want to see the day when I freak out somebody with a prank or mindfuck, and they laugh it off as "one of those taco bell publicity stunts".

But we're the ones on the fringe, actually doing it. So we have the power to come up with new kinds of pranks and freakouts which are a surprising to people in a world of factory-produced surprises.