http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122119092302626987.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
By ELLEN GAMERMAN
September 12, 2008; Page W1
Across the country, young people are joining campaigns that are
drawing thousands of followers inspired by a common purpose.
They're not handing out leaflets at rallies for Barack Obama or John
McCain. Instead, they're posing like statues in public squares,
dropping their pants in train stations and bursting into song in malls.
Cities are being swept up in a wave of inane pranks. On a recent
weekend, "zombies" smeared with fake blood idly roamed the streets in
downtown San Francisco. That same weekend, a crowd of people in New
York's Union Square danced to music that no one else could hear; and
in Berkeley, Calif., jokesters in white, flowing robes handed out
pamphlets at a farmer's market, touting the benefits of joining a
cult. (Reason No. 5: "A great excuse not to talk to your birth family
anymore.")
Pranksters say the random events are meant to jolt strangers out of
their routines, shake up the monotony of urban life and create mildly
awkward moments that play well on YouTube. Organized almost entirely
online, the stunts also create a real-life sense of community among
participants, many of whom are young people who spend their days in
less-than-exciting office jobs.
"We're finding ourselves more and more disconnected," says Ari
Lerner, a 24-year-old software engineer in Los Angeles who helps run
a prankster group called GuerilLA. "We all sit at our computers and
we forget there's a sun outside. It's a reaction to that."
Earlier this year, 15 pairs of identical twins, dressed in identical
outfits, filled a New York subway car and mirrored each other's
actions, without explanation. On different days over the next month,
groups in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Toronto plan to gather
in public parks and listen to the same MP3 recorded set of
instructions on their headphones. Onlookers will be presented with
the spectacle of a seemingly random group of people playing games
like freeze tag and Twister in unison.
Such events are part of a broader phenomenon that includes raves,
guerrilla theatre, flash mobs, performance art and other public
stunts. The urban playground movement encourages mass pillow-fights
in public parks. In the Free Hugs Campaign, people go up to strangers
and hug them.
Prankster groups are sprouting up around the country. Boston-based
Banditos Misteriosos says its mailing list has doubled to more than
2,000 people since the start of the year. Scene Diego, which formed
in San Diego, Calif., in February, says it has more than 1,000 people
signed up as "undercover agents." And the Urban Prankster Network, a
Web site started earlier this year by New York comedian Charlie Todd
to help people organize stunts in their own cities, says it now has
more than 23,300 members world-wide.
Mr. Todd, a 29-year-old teacher with the Upright Citizens Brigade
Theatre in New York, is also the founder of Improv Everywhere,
created in 2001 and credited with popularizing the current prank
phenomenon. Mr. Todd says it began as a way to entertain himself and
his friends. They would dream up outlandish scenarios and then try to
make them happen.
Today, Mr. Todd's pranks typically involve hundreds of participants
and precise choreography to create what looks like a weird,
spontaneous moment. He says he never explains the pranks to
onlookers. Instead, he lets people draw their own conclusions. "Some
people look at them and say, 'Wow, that's a work of art,' " he says.
"Others say, 'Wow, that's really stupid.' "
Some pranks just fall flat. One organizer in Phoenix tried to throw
an impromptu party in a living room display at an Ikea in May, but it
was a flop. Her posting on the Urban Prankster Network read: "Ikea
mission: FAILED!!! Why!? Because only six people showed up."
Joey Skaggs, a longtime media prankster and author of the Art of the
Prank blog, is critical of some of the latest stunts. Mr. Skaggs,
whose best-known pranks include duping a New York television station
in 1976 with a story about a bordello for dogs, says the stunts lack
a subversive, anti-establishment edge. Because of that, people are
less likely to stop and think about what they're seeing -- or even
care. "The bar's been really lowered," he says. "There's a lot of
junk out there calling itself pranks."
Today'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. A year later, similar activities meant to
lampoon and disrupt the Democratic convention in Chicago were staged
by the Youth International Party, or Yippies -- founded by Mr.
Hoffman, Jerry Rubin and others -- and included nominating a pig for president.
Some contemporary pranks owe much to their '60s precursors. During
the Republican convention earlier this month, "Lobbyists for McCain"
dressed in dark power suits and gathered in a parking lot in St.
Paul, Minn., grilling hot dogs at a tailgate party and handing out
fake money. The aim, the group said, was to call attention to what it
called lobbyists' influence over the Republican campaign agenda.
("It's certainly common for there to be political theater surrounding
candidates' events," says McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds.
"It's part of campaigning.")
The latest pranksters are "urban alchemists," akin to so-called
guerrilla gardeners who cram plantings into sidewalk cracks, or
people who create "found art" made from random items plucked from the
streets, according to Jonathan Wynn, a sociologist at Smith College
in Northampton, Mass.
"These are people in cities who take the public spaces and everyday
life and make something kind of magical about it," he says.
Improv Everywhere pranks have typically been aimed at the consumer
culture. In one 2006 stunt, 80 people dressed in what looked like
Best Buy employee uniforms -- blue shirts and khakis -- walked around
in one of the chain's stores in Manhattan, much to the confusion of
everyone around them. Mr. Todd says a store employee called the
police and the pranksters disbanded after the authorities arrived.
Best Buy spokeswoman Susan Busch says the company "took it in good
stride" and would only object if the prank interfered with customers shopping.
Last year, the group sent 111 shirtless men into an Abercrombie &
Fitch in New York City, in a spoof of the chain's use of bare-chested
hunks in its ad campaigns. The men (some fat, some thin) were told to
say they were shopping for a shirt. Spokesman David Cupps says the
company has no comment.
The group also sent more than 50 redheads to stand in front of a
Manhattan Wendy's and chant "No pigtails!" in a mock protest of what
they said was the inaccurate portrayal of redheads in the chain's ad
campaign. Company spokesman Bob Bertini says the stunt was a minor
distraction and showed people "engaging with the brand."
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.
Some of Mr. Todd's admirers objected, however. "Taco Bell killed the
freeze," says David Kartsonis, a 21-year-old video and TV producer
from Redondo Beach, Calif., who helps organize events for GuerilLA.
He says he won't do the stunt now because it's been overexposed. Mr.
Kartsonis also complains that Improv Everywhere's videos seem geared
more toward viral popularity online than in-the-moment fun: "They
spend a lot more time worrying about the end viewer. We focus on
people who are actually there at the time enjoying it."
Mr. Todd says he did the Taco Bell stunt after the freeze craze had
passed; freezes have already been performed in 50 countries, he says.
Sensitive to suggestions that he has been co-opted in some way, he
adds that he keeps his commercial events separate from Improv
Everywhere, so that prank participants won't show up for a stunt
whose content is controlled by an advertiser.
Recently Mr. Todd began accepting corporate sponsorships. In exchange
for running a Yahoo logo on the video of his coming MP3 pranks, he
says the company is paying him a fee, which he plans to use to hire a
production team and possibly stage aerial shots. Mr. Todd says he'll
inform participants about Yahoo's involvement beforehand. "If I work
on a corporate thing, there's going to be a certain percentage of my
fan base who thinks it's evil," he says. "It's been a very difficult
thing for me to figure out."
Most prank groups aren't wrestling with such issues, however. They're
just trying to pull off a good joke. At a recent "marathon" staged by
GuerilLA along the Strand in Manhattan Beach, Calif., unsuspecting
joggers and bicyclists encountered a cheering crowd, water stands, a
finish line and a person handing out medals.
Prank participants included a 25-year-old assistant video editor (who
also feeds people's parking meters, just to be nice), a 51-year-old
Verizon customer-service specialist who says he feels "locked in a
cube" during the week, and a 36-year-old camera operator who recently
proposed to his girlfriend during another stunt.
Gregg Tenser was one of the bewildered runners who broke the
finish-line tape. He wanted to power through his 10-mile run, so he
didn't stop to ask why people were cheering. "That was curious," he
said, jogging away. Had a reporter not told him afterward what was
going on, he says, he might never have realized it was a joke.
The 41-year-old money manager says he likes the idea of people doing
something crazy for no reason. "It was a fun, borderline-bizarre
experience," he says.
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Write to Ellen Gamerman at ellen.gamerman@wsj.com
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