Opensource discussion on O:MF and what comes after.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

So, the trickster... in myth, is often associated with openings and opportunities. That is, they create an opportunity, wait for someone to take advantage of the opportunity and then close the door when they walk in.

So, it seems to me that this is an area that we could improve upon. PosterGASM, takes advantage of an opportuntiy (all the eyeballs walking by) but it doesn't make an opportunity for the victim. Colbertgasm was just a jake (an awesome and highly successful jake... but I digress), no serious trickery there.

Thus far, we've been the Merry Trickster, the crazy people that invade forums and inundate them with cream pies. Perhaps, we can raise our challenges to the Trapping Trickster level

I am reminded of Joey Skaggs and his pranks on the Media. Although I think he has become somewhat stagnant in his philosophy and a bit of a pretentious asshole (with way more focus on CAUSES than I would like...), he has pulled some fantastic pranks by creating an opening, letting someone in and then springing the trap. The geoduck prank, for example, was a great instance of what I'm talking about. It required relatively little preparation, a few photos, an 'article' and then getting the story into the right ears...

It seems that it might be easy to put too much into the prank, to invest to heavily or too obviously. I think the trick is in the mechanism, not the bait, or the victim...

Let's open some doors

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

Valerie suggests that the arguments made in Postergasm materials are weak, but I disagree. I doubt she's very familiar with the project... Which ones are weak?

Ohh, no no. I wasn't trying to say that arguments made in posterGASM materials are weak. I was just saying the first thing that came to mind when I read that quote.

Well, Postergasm is just one tentacle in my bag of tricks. Also, you're not accounting for the sleeper effect or priming, which arguably Postergasm could function through.

What is the sleeper effect and priming?

How do you define a mindfuck, Valerie?

I'm not quite positive what I define a mindfuck as. So far, I have that it is something that causes a person to stop and think, if only for a second. It jolts them out of their daily grind. That's kind of in terms of poserGASM, but that's all I have.

So far two whole people have emailed me. 

What have they said?

Then again, I don't see GASMs as persuasive or evangelical at all.  I just wanted to bring a little weirdness to my campus, and so far people seem to like it.

This is more responding to Net than you GA, though I don't really see posterGASMing as persuasive or evangelical, either. Unless you're using Roger's rants, there's not really enough material on them to be persuasive or evangelical. I've only done it once, but I didn't do it to preach or persuade. I did it for fun, for the lulz. I did it in hopes that someone would see them and be amused, or see them and wonder what the fuck it was about. And I did it because it feels like something that's illegal or against the rules and I got a thrill from doing it.

When I get to do it on my campus, it will also be to bring some weirdness to my environment. I believe Cram said in one of his posts (possibly Why I Put Up Posters), that part of why he does it is to reclaim his environment and make it his. I see value in that, too. There are a lot of flyers and stuff posted around my dorms. I figure that if I have to look at posters and flyers in my environment, they should be ones that I would enjoy looking at, or that have meaning for me.

That's how I feel about posterGASMing. In my last post, I mentioned the aim of "waking people up". I mentioned that aim because I think I read it somewhere on here, though now I'm thinking I didn't and that I just made it up. It isn't one of my personal aims, it was just the aim that occurred to me when I read that quote.

Valerie, I think those are valid reasons for Postergasming, for sure. I have other motivations but we certainly don't need to agree about this.

You do seem ambivalent towards "waking people up," as well as the nature of your "weak" comment. It appears to me that you dodged those questions and could explain them much better.

There are, generally speaking, two main modes of persuasion—slow and logical, and fast and emotional. I think Roger's work on both levels, making them quite powerful indeed. The rest rely on the emotional route and in my mind are creative seeds that may sprout when a more conducive mind state is present later on down the line, if not immediately. These also have additional persuasive power by the placement genius of most of the people who distribute them. A clever context can add a surprising amount of ooomph...

Please to Google sleeper effect and priming.

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

Payne, I ought to have the time to compose a fully assed response later today.

[Payne]

Payne, I ought to have the time to compose a fully assed response later today.

It's all good.

[Golden Applesauce]

So, the trickster... in myth, is often associated with openings and opportunities. That is, they create an opportunity, wait for someone to take advantage of the opportunity and then close the door when they walk in.

So, it seems to me that this is an area that we could improve upon. PosterGASM, takes advantage of an opportuntiy (all the eyeballs walking by) but it doesn't make an opportunity for the victim. Colbertgasm was just a jake (an awesome and highly successful jake... but I digress), no serious trickery there.

Thus far, we've been the Merry Trickster, the crazy people that invade forums and inundate them with cream pies. Perhaps, we can raise our challenges to the Trapping Trickster level

I am reminded of Joey Skaggs and his pranks on the Media. Although I think he has become somewhat stagnant in his philosophy and a bit of a pretentious asshole (with way more focus on CAUSES than I would like...), he has pulled some fantastic pranks by creating an opening, letting someone in and then springing the trap. The geoduck prank, for example, was a great instance of what I'm talking about. It required relatively little preparation, a few photos, an 'article' and then getting the story into the right ears...

It seems that it might be easy to put too much into the prank, to invest to heavily or too obviously. I think the trick is in the mechanism, not the bait, or the victim...

Let's open some doors

The trickster archetype is certainly interesting.  Most trickster tales fall into two basic types:
1.) The Trickster takes advantage of someone.
2.) Someone tries to take advantage of the Trickster, but he outwits them and they get taken advantage of instead.

Either way, there is a winner and a loser, the Trickster and the Victim.  (Although in the second case, the victim 'deserved' it.)

If GASMs have a loser, you're doing something wrong.  I'd rather be the Wise Fool, who rejects common sense and thereby has insights and sees the opportunities that others miss.  GASMs, then, highlight the absurdity in the world and thereby try to make those opportunities a little more visible to people cursed with common sense.

[Triple Zero]

It's all good.

uh-oh.

you're already starting to sound like someone ... else, Payne

thanks for the cross-linking of threads btw, i don't have time to read all of these forums anymore and i'm trying to keep a littlebit on top with what's going on.

[Payne]

It's all good.

uh-oh.

you're already starting to sound like someone ... else, Payne

thanks for the cross-linking of threads btw, i don't have time to read all of these forums anymore and i'm trying to keep a littlebit on top with what's going on.

If it helps, I actually feel a bit like someone else just now, not majorly so, just a little.

[Cramulus]

I wrote my thesis on the sleeper effect.  (as it relates to memory)

Basically The Sleeper Effect states that over time, your have increasing trouble remembering whether or not information came from a credible source. Especially if the information was compelling, emotionally evocative, or something you want to believe. So weeks later, you may forget that what you read was a blogger's speculation and not hard news. (I got a $2000 science grant from pepsi to research this effect!) (no, pepsi wasn't interested in the results, they just fund cool experiments, and I was just name dropping)

Priming (I believe) is when you set up someone for an effect.. like when in the morning, you say to yourself, "This is going to be a bad day," and lo and behold, all the input channels are broadcasting 'Bad day'. You can use priming to formulate a lot of interesting reactions. Before the H.Clinton/Obama debate, I was watching the newscasters prime us for the issues they thought were important. "Will Hillary depict herself as destined to win?"



I really like this thread, but I haven't been posting in it 'cause I've been flagged as some sort leader type. As flattering as that is, (srsly)

• I don't want to risk everybody listening to me and my ideas rather than leading on their own. So brainstorm, you fucks!
• I know what you people do to leaders. And I don't wanna end up on no cross

[Ari]

I actually plan to go somewhere with this so please bare with my insufficient articulatory skills:

We are slowing gaining momentum here in Göteborg. The Mighty Boosh Cabal is small, and I am essentially the only one disorganising anything but I found a good handful of people who seem to be enjoying letting go of the traditional ways of thinking.
Fuck, I am even getting a deeply christian girl from Poland to read and discuss discordian documents with me.
Roger's rants are being translated, posters are being prepared - things are slowly picking up I dare say.

The methods I could employ in Germany don't work here. A new battlefield demands new tactics. And this is just the present I am talking about. It seems to me that our modern society hasn't really changed much in the last 30-40 years. I am thinking fundamentals here, obviously things have changed in some way - and a lot of the tools you have been working on and with are in good shape to tackle the present-day mind of the average sheep. But the last 5-10 years were a wild ride, we're rapidly going somewhere.

With the information-age and the revolution around it our society is in a state of imminent change. On this forum I have seen some very keen observations on what is happening and where we are most likely to end up, damn I could lurk these forums for hours and would still find something interesting that I missed due to my late arrival. The tools to fuck the present-mind might are possibly not efficiently fucking the future-mind. So maybe some thought should be put into the investigation of this change of mind and how to penetrate it properly.

I am having some notes on that matter but it's all chaotic and I don't feel like I am having nearly enough data to actually write something proper about it.

[Verbal Mike]

pw, I would be interested in hearing about your methods from Germany... me and some others in Germany might be able to learn from them.

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

Payne in italics.

Most of my questions still apply, especially surrounding this theory of mini-egos (which is compelling though I think it's inaccurate).

If our methods are ambiguous, our goals, our "reasons" are more so. Such is the nature of discord, I suppose.

Mine aren't. Mostly.

This is fair enough, perhaps I was painting with too broad a brush when I made that statement. I suppose I also have to be more aware that many of our personal gigs and gags are subject to KYFMS

However, I would probably say it is no bad thing to have diverse and "ambiguous" reasons and/or goals. It may not give us strength in depth, but it creates a wide pool of expertise and resource to call on.

I would argue that it is a bad thing to have ambiguous goals. There is evidence that specificity in attitude predicts the associated behavior while generalities in attitude are not linked with the associated behavior, source on request. But also, imagine playing basketball where the players and the crowd aren't exactly sure where the hoop is. The game would be too hard to play and to watch for that matter. It also can be too specific, for example, designing hoops and backboards which are so bright and vivid that they're distracting.

We bring almost as many personal viewpoints and prejudices to the table here. The tension this can create has been noted many times and exploited a few times (nothing like a bit of tension to get the creative juices flowing, right?). But ignoring the tension for a moment, multiple viewpoints mean we have a broader field of fire. We can attack one person, idea or concept from many different angles at the same time. In almost any circumstance, we "have you surrounded, come out with your hands up!"

Why aren't we taking more advantage of this? As I look around here, I see quite a number of projects going on. Good ones, and almost all of them are Crams or are being kept going by him.

I'll tell you what holds me back. There's little to no criteria for failure or success for most projects. The ones with better defined criteria have gone much farther—look at Colbertgasm and Postergasm. Colbertgasm succeeded because there was a testability to it and specific real world action to take, however providing plenty of room for creativity. The same is true with Postergasm. You succeed if you put up posters and take a few pictures of it. You succeed if you make posters that someone else puts up. You succeed big time if you hear about a poster making an impact on someone. But it's also possible and very likely IMO, that most of your successes will never be known, that you really made someone's day or royally pissed someone off but they had no way to contact you.

Valerie suggests that the arguments made in Postergasm materials are weak, but I disagree. I doubt she's very familiar with the project... Which ones are weak?

Addressing firstly, the measurement of success in a project, I always feel that the best projects have some kind of goal included in the initial pitching of an idea. Not all of them have grand aims (like Colbertgasm), but I think the most effective ones are when we do aim high and go all out to achieve it. Even getting Colbert to throw out some of Discordias more recognised memes and jokes would have gotten a whole bunch of people excited who were in no way connected with this site. The benefit of this is yet to be really assessed, but as an achievement of our personal goals, it is priceless.

Postergasm, I always feel, is done more for personal reasons than for it's impact. I did learn some things with the spree I went on with Syn, Trip and Broken AI in Edinburgh last month, though.

It's good to have an actual back up piece of literature to hand to someone if they ask you what you're doing, complete with contact details. This was suggested more for people who seemed interested and excited in what we were doing, but holds just as much for people who are hostile to it. This should probably be addressed on (at least) some of the posters themselves.

I don't speak for Valerie, I'm not sure which ones she thinks are weak, or for why.

Well I think we're on the same page here.

Also, that was directed at Valerie, I probably should have put it into another post.

It's good that we have someone like Cramulus who can manage a project, push it through,get people motivated to take part. Cram is a good guy, and has all the qualities of a good leader, but we need more people to take up the reigns, to push through these projects, to create more of their own.

What do you attribute to his success?

Cram is charismatic, driven and well liked. People listen to his ideas because they work, and, building on past successes, he is able to galvanise a core of people into action on a specific short or long term goal.

Mostly he is successful because he actually puts himself into a position to be so.

Do you believe we can model these qualities and adapt them to our own personalities? I do, and I think a small number of posters stepping up to the plate in such a manner would be necessary for a large payoff in activity and results.

We need more varied ideas and people who are willing to step up to the plate and have their ideas heard and implemented.

How can YOU help make this happen? And how badly do you really want it to happen?

I'm going to practice what I preach, and try and throw out some ideas. How badly do I want it to happen? Not sure, where this is a call to action, I believe it now hinges on my first experiment on changing my self-perceived role in PD from my usual WOMPing, fluff specialising caricature of myself into one (which I've always wanted to try, but never actually done for a sustained period of time) that writes interesting thought provoking articles and the like.

If it works, great. If it doesn't work, then I need to revise my hypothesis again.

I'm looking forward to your experiment. What exactly is your hypothesis?

Roger recently called for us to start fucking with the media. I agreed then, and I still do, but I'm begining to think that what we have discussed so far for this "plan" is too small time, is not pushing our limits. We DO need to jack the media, but I think we need to do it directly, or at least more directly than I have been thinking about.

We need people on the inside. OK, so we're not going to get a news anchor, or even the guy that does his teleprompter, but we need to start speaking with people who ARE involved with the mass media, with students who shortly will be. We need to raise our sights a little and focus our attention on places and people who, if we can affect change there, will have a larger and broader effect. We almost had this with the Adam Weishaupt Society (another of Crams projects), we need to revisit that idea and REALLY put some effort into it.

I'm interested in how I can help to collectively fuck with the media. I know there are a lot of other people who have a similar inclination, however the devil is in the details... I've come to expect that when I press discordians for the details of their plans that they probably won't have them and may even actively avoid fleshing things out with some half-baked rationalization about disorder. It's a flying by the seat of your pants gamble that usually doesn't even occur because people lose interest as soon as they realize how much effort is required to make it happen.

You're talking in glittering generalities. What kind of larger effects? What people and places? What will speaking with insiders and students do for you? I'm a student of the mass media, albeit a subsection, but that is the environment where I'm being taught to succeed at. It's quite possible that I'll be much further inside the belly of the beast in the next few years, but then what? I hope you don't think that I'd risk my entire design career for a prank. Well, maybe I would, but it would need a much better mission statement than, "Let's fuck with the media, LOL."

What got me about Roger's call to action was the potential for the "social fiction" meme. That's hella juicy.

My problem with pushing my ideas forward with regard to jacking or fucking with the media is I'm so far removed from the actual scene and, I admit, unfamiliar with how much of the system works. General ideas, I'm good for in this case, actually pushing for specific details and assigning people to different tasks, I would need to collaborate with someone who DOES know the system. And that's what we need, to assign people tasks and hope that they do them.

I'm not suggesting that people risk their careers on a prank, I'm suggesting that having a sympathetic ear and voice in areas where we are trying to affect change is not a bad thing. If our target is the media, then it's not a bad idea to have someone on the inside who can tell us when something is not going to work (for example). Yes this is another generality, but this is just an idea I've thrown up to see if it has any merit, it's not a detailed call for action. Maybe we DON'T need people on the ground, maybe we can do everything from our computers.

And yes, Rogers social fiction idea is awesome. Just hitting message boards with it isn't going to have a great impact though.

I will try to think through a couple of ideas for it, and post them in the relevant thread today.

What criteria does someone need to fulfill to consult with them about "the system." What parts of "the system" have the most importance or relevance? This plays into developing a specific plan, so we can focus our energy more effectively on what is important and relevant to the objectives.

It's my understanding that few people have a meaningful idea of how national and multinational media systems work because it's an emergent phenomena that arises out of a wide array of specialized personnel working together. Having a resource like that would be nice, but I don't think it's necessary for us to either get close or achieve our plans.

How do we know if we need people on the ground until we have crystallized the desired objective?

For the media, we can read all sorts of other things. Popular Culture, large institutions, maybe (a real long shot here) the underbelly of Government.

This is what we should be doing if we are focusing on effecting change with O:MF outside our own minds.

This is why nothing gets done. It sounds good on the surface, but really you're not saying anything in real world terms. Once you embellish these ideas with concrete, testable elements they'll grow legs.

Working on it.

To further clarify, I'm not saying that we shouldn't discuss heavily abstract ideas, but in the interest of pragmatism to continually move these ideas toward the concrete.

Within our own minds, O:MF as a self-mindfuck, we should perhaps be considering adjusting our roles more often. Within this community many of us seem to have a well defined niche, a certain service, viewpoint, shtick that we are noted for having or providing.

This is all well and good, it's nice to know that there is a certain constancy, a familiarity in our interactions on this board. It lends a small amount of stabiliy to an otherwise fractious group of individuals, but it tends to stifle a great deal of creativity, (of which there is still plenty, but we can always do with more).

Lead by example. A lot of people like you and respect you, myself included. If you started doing something like that you'd be assured to influence people.

Could you really go a week without WOMP though? Do you remember when Roger got all nice? People were terrified.

How would you know that enough people are playing more roles? What can one do to encourage it?  When would it be contraindicated?

Working on it.

What role would you like to see me play, for example? Or Cain? Or some noob that just rolled in?

When we step up to the plate and announce our ideas, I believe we need to be more willing to adopt a different role in seeing them implemented (we could possibly find ourselves auto-mindfucked into taking a leadership role, so that Cram can get on with the projects he enjoys taking forward more). We need to see more people willing and able to take on any role, be it leader, artist, writer, ranter, thinker, debator and a myriad of others.

And again, how to do this?

I've been considering writing a rant recently but there is little of my writing that doesn't implode from the force of my own analysis.

The leadership idea is good too. I'd like to see that happen as well, but I could see hostile competition between would-be leaders fucking everything up.

Perhaps what we need more of is taking initiative and collaboration not necessarily someone explicitly playing "leader."

About your writing, fair enough. God knows I've started plenty of pieces of writing which I've scrubbed and never posted. By the same measure though, the WOMP perspective that I've been honing the last year or so, that "it doesn't matter if it LOOKS rough, someone will find merit in it, even if it's only you" is something I've applied more and more to other things.

It isn't really about the quality of writing, for me, it's about having my ideas heard. And the good thing I've found about this board in particular is that while most of the attention is paid to the ideas who show up in Mercs wearing suits, the ones who come in looking like a diseased tramp will ALSO have some attention shown to them.

I haven't yet been completely torn down for anything that I've written, but I have to of course admit that that could be because I have a certain reputation on here, and people don't want to hurt my feelings or some shit.

The leadership idea isn't to give everyone a sense of authority entitlement. If they've been doing their homework, they should already have that, and I don't see an outright war on the boards over it. I see it more as helping people here to develop skills that they already have, but never exercise. If it leads to some friction, so be it. (look to my quick analysis of why Cram is so successful for what I'm trying to promote in others, myself included. We are all capable of it, but few of us are actually trying to achieve it.)

How do you know someone has heard your idea? Could you give an example of when you've been heard and an example of not being heard?

How do we know people have an interest and motivation to develop leadership skills?

If everyone tried very hard to be the leader in projects, nothing would get done. The point I'm trying to make is that a collaborative mindset may be more important than a strong leader. It may be that Cram isn't so much a leader, but very good at getting people to work together. I think we may be missing the forest for a particularly attractive tree.

It is in this way that I feel the mini-egos and One Self idea I began with in this thread can be resolved. It is by truly pushing ourselves and over reaching that we will discover more about hidden aspects of our personality, about what we can use to achieve more with less effort, and what we can then turn our attention to "fixing" or "improving".

While this all is helpful, I'm not sure I agree with the theory of mini-egos versus the One Self. In lieu of an operationalized idea of "mini-egos..." I'm not sure the model is very useful either.

I think you're absolutely correct about pushing ourselves and overreaching though. RAH!

Maybe the model isn't useful, my experiment should help test it. My One Self, I see it as the WOMPing fluff artist. My "Mini-Ego" in this case, the one that never gets it's chance in the spotlight, is the more intellectual and serious side of me. I'm trying it on for size, to see if it changes my perspective, or improves my skills in any way.

Also, thanks for the second part. 

I don't see the separation between egos as desirable. I think using language that assumes divisions can help create divisions in your personality.

Could you compare and contrast the idea with Carl Jung's shadow and collective unconscious? They seem similar. I believe most of Jung's ideas are still untestable so if the mini-ego/main-ego theory is also untestable why should I prefer it over Jung's?

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

Priming (I believe) is when you set up someone for an effect.. like when in the morning, you say to yourself, "This is going to be a bad day," and lo and behold, all the input channels are broadcasting 'Bad day'. You can use priming to formulate a lot of interesting reactions. Before the H.Clinton/Obama debate, I was watching the newscasters prime us for the issues they thought were important. "Will Hillary depict herself as destined to win?"

I'm not sure priming works internally like that. I think your first example is a better instance of self-fulfilling prophecy. Priming doesn't seem to rely on a prediction that you believe and manifest. I think it's related to the mere exposure effect where familiarity makes people more inclined to like something. Perhaps the exposure effect is just priming on steroids.

I'm not sure Postergasm ever could get prevalent enough for the benefits of the mere exposure effect to kick in. But I'm fairly sure that the posters could conceptually prime people to experience more weirdness in their day as well as respond more favorably to discordia should they ever stumble that far down the rabbit hole.

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

So, the trickster... in myth, is often associated with openings and opportunities. That is, they create an opportunity, wait for someone to take advantage of the opportunity and then close the door when they walk in.

So, it seems to me that this is an area that we could improve upon. PosterGASM, takes advantage of an opportuntiy (all the eyeballs walking by) but it doesn't make an opportunity for the victim. Colbertgasm was just a jake (an awesome and highly successful jake... but I digress), no serious trickery there.

Thus far, we've been the Merry Trickster, the crazy people that invade forums and inundate them with cream pies. Perhaps, we can raise our challenges to the Trapping Trickster level

I am reminded of Joey Skaggs and his pranks on the Media. Although I think he has become somewhat stagnant in his philosophy and a bit of a pretentious asshole (with way more focus on CAUSES than I would like...), he has pulled some fantastic pranks by creating an opening, letting someone in and then springing the trap. The geoduck prank, for example, was a great instance of what I'm talking about. It required relatively little preparation, a few photos, an 'article' and then getting the story into the right ears...

It seems that it might be easy to put too much into the prank, to invest to heavily or too obviously. I think the trick is in the mechanism, not the bait, or the victim...

Let's open some doors

I like the trap format you've got there. That's the kind of pragmatic strategy that can be applied to some of the more general ideas floating around here.

I don't like the suggestion that it's bad to get too invested in the prank. I think it's entirely too rare for people to take their pranks too far and par for the course to settle for an underdeveloped scheme.

What do you mean about the mechanism being more important than the bait or the victim? Are you saying that the slamming of the door of the trap is the mechanism? I think Skaggs goes off on the revealing of the prank being of critical importance, is that what you're referring to?

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

So, the trickster... in myth, is often associated with openings and opportunities. That is, they create an opportunity, wait for someone to take advantage of the opportunity and then close the door when they walk in.

So, it seems to me that this is an area that we could improve upon. PosterGASM, takes advantage of an opportuntiy (all the eyeballs walking by) but it doesn't make an opportunity for the victim. Colbertgasm was just a jake (an awesome and highly successful jake... but I digress), no serious trickery there.

Thus far, we've been the Merry Trickster, the crazy people that invade forums and inundate them with cream pies. Perhaps, we can raise our challenges to the Trapping Trickster level

I am reminded of Joey Skaggs and his pranks on the Media. Although I think he has become somewhat stagnant in his philosophy and a bit of a pretentious asshole (with way more focus on CAUSES than I would like...), he has pulled some fantastic pranks by creating an opening, letting someone in and then springing the trap. The geoduck prank, for example, was a great instance of what I'm talking about. It required relatively little preparation, a few photos, an 'article' and then getting the story into the right ears...

It seems that it might be easy to put too much into the prank, to invest to heavily or too obviously. I think the trick is in the mechanism, not the bait, or the victim...

Let's open some doors

I like the trap format you've got there. That's the kind of pragmatic strategy that can be applied to some of the more general ideas floating around here.

I don't like the suggestion that it's bad to get too invested in the prank. I think it's entirely too rare for people to take their pranks too far and par for the course to settle for an underdeveloped scheme.

I think I meant that its easy to be focused on pranking the Big Prank... pranking the National Media, rather than pranking Pajamas Media, or Local Media. Skaggs with the geoduck prank, hit local media which propagated it outward. I recently saw a video on YouTube that was trying to create a meme viral video like rickroll... except that it was WAY to obvious.. for example it was called *the guys name*roll and said on the side "Post this everywhere and trick people into clicking it!!!"

Too obvious, too invested. Rather than setting the trap and then waiting to see if it worked, he sort of took the trap and threw it at people.

What do you mean about the mechanism being more important than the bait or the victim? Are you saying that the slamming of the door of the trap is the mechanism? I think Skaggs goes off on the revealing of the prank being of critical importance, is that what you're referring to?

Revealing the prank is very important, but that's just showing everyone that the trap worked (and spotlighting the mechanism). The mechanism of the trap, the thing that makes the mark take the bait, appealing to the greed, or hubris, or automated responses, or herd mentality or whatever thats the key I think. For example the geoduck prank took advantage of the media hyping anti-Japanese stories. He knew the bait would be taken, because he saw the flaw in the victim. Much of our Mindfuckery relies on a random person reading something, it seems to me like variations on the Jake. Those are great pranks, but they're all sort of the same kind of category "surprise=information" (they are moree like pit traps or mine... ready to take any poor sod that happens by) whereas a lot of the 'prankster' pranks seem more like traps based on weaknesses in the specific victim,, traps designed to exploit and oftem spotlight the weakness...

Perhaps the art of the trickster lies in understanding the nature of his target. We have a lot of people around here that seem to be really good at grokking the nature of individuals and groups. It's why we can troll, no? If we can develop pranks based on that understanding, and designed to exploit/expose flaws in the nature of the victim (perhaps just to the victim themselves, or to the world at large) I think that would be an interesting O:MF of the future

For example, if instead of ColbertGASM, we had done BillOGASM,  Bill O'Reily could have been convinced that a private presidential task force was being assembled to deal with 'left wing media bias'. Of course, we would accidentally give him the address to a Klan rally and make sure that plenty of the evil Left Wing Media were on hand with cameras. (Obvious hyperbolye is obvious; Exaggeration for effect and examination... and the LOL that my imagination gave me at the thought)





These are just ideas and I don't consider anything I'm typing here as true or more correct... just ideas about 'the next level'... and obviously I nay have no idea how many awesome traplike pranks are being pulled off around here

[Payne]

Net, I will reply to this later on.

I am coming round to your point of view, somewhat.