Hype - The Art of the Prank

September 7, 2023December 15, 2023

The Battle of Burning Disinformation

A war with never ending ammunition.

Ukraine’s fight against disinformation is creating a new startup sector, by Thomas Macaulay, thenextweb.com, September 6, 2023

Counter-disinformation is a growing industry

When Russian troops flooded into Ukraine last year, an army of propagandists followed them. Within hours, Kremlin-backed media were reporting that President Zelenskyy had fled the country. Weeks later, a fake video of Zelenskyy purportedly surrendering went viral. But almost as soon as they emerged, the lies were disproven.

Government campaigns had prepared Ukrainians for digital disinformation. When the crude deepfake appeared, the clip was quickly debunked, removed from social media platforms, and disproven by Zelenskyy in a genuine video.

The incident became a symbol of the wider information war. Analysts had expected Russia’s propaganda weapons to wreak havoc, but Ukraine was learning to disarm them. Those lessons are now fostering a new sector for startups: counter-disinformation.

Like much of Ukrainian society, the country’s tech workers has adopted aspects of military ethos. Some have enlisted in the IT Army of volunteer hackers or applied their skills to defence technologies. Others have joined the information war.

In the latter group are the women who founded Dattalion. A portmanteau of data and battalion, the project provides the world’s largest free and independent open-source database of photo and video footage from the war. All media is classified as official, trusted, or not verified. By preserving and authenticating the material, the platform aims to disprove false narratives and propaganda.

Dattalion’s data collection team leader, Olha Lykova, was an early member of the team. She joined as the fighting reached the outskirts of her hometown of Kyiv.

“We started to collect data from open sources in Ukraine, because there were no international reporters and international press at the time,” Lykova, 25, told TNW in a video call. “In the news, it was not possible to see the reality of what was happening in Ukraine.” Read the rest of this article here.

November 3, 2021December 15, 2023

Activists Tanked CBS’s “The Activist”

Reality TV got caught trying to be real. CBS was casting for a new reality TV show called The Activist where social issue crusaders would be pitted against each other. h/t Naomi

POSTSCRIPT: The loud outcry against this pathetically bad idea resulted in a complete reconfiguring of the show.

Inside ‘The Activist’ Meltdowns as the Entire Shitshow Spiraled Out of Control, by Cheyenne Roundtree. The Daily Beast, September 15, 2021

The backlash against “The Activist” continues, with an open letter and response from host Julianne Hough. The Daily Beast spoke with two activists who were approached by the show.

It took just a few hours for CBS’s new reality competition The Activist to be globally panned. A Frankenstein mashup of a Hunger Games-style dystopian world mixed with hints of Survivor and The Apprentice, the show places six activists into teams and pairs them with a “high-profile public figure” to duke it out in challenges to promote their various causes. At the end of the five-episode series, they will have the chance to pitch their cause at the G20 Summit in Rome. Whoever secures the most funding wins the show.

Instead of world leaders or any sort of mission-driven experts being tapped to host the show, Usher, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, and Julianne Hough will serve as co-hosts and offer up advice to the contestants.

The Daily Beast reviewed the six contestants’ social media accounts—including TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram profiles—which were all created in August. One posted, “Help me win by commenting and liking my posts through the next few missions!” Another contestant thanked his followers for donating to his GoFundMe, which went towards covering the unpaid time off he took as an elementary teacher in order to compete on the show.

Needless to say, the announcement of a show that pits serious causes against one another and then relies on superficial social media metrics to determine which campaign is more successful—in the middle of global pandemic—did not go over well.

Read the rest here.

October 5, 2019December 15, 2023

BP or Not BP: Be Wary of Petroleum Based Companies Bearing Gifts

The art activism group BP or not BP is planning a “Trojan Horse” action for November 23 at the British Museum to protest arts organizations that take oil funding. The public is invited.

Anti-Oil Protesters Will Storm the British Museum with a Trojan Horse
by Sarah Rose Sharp
Hyperallergic.com
October 3, 2019

BP or not BP? launched a crowdfunding campaign to build a giant Trojan Horse for its largest protest yet, which will coincide with the museum’s Troy: Myth and Reality exhibition.

A press release dropped today, announcing the next slated action by activist group BP or Not BP? in its ongoing protest campaign against the British Museum’s involvement with British Petroleum (BP). The theater group is inviting public participation in its forthcoming campaign, which takes specific aim at the opening weekend of the new BP-sponsored exhibition about the ancient city of Troy. BP or not BP? intends to replicate the mythic “Siege of Troy” by staging an action at the British Museum. The group has framed this as a “mass creative takeover” and “reimagining” of the British Museum which will take place on Saturday, November 23. They invite public participation in both the protest action and a public crowdfunding campaign to raise money to build a giant Trojan Horse.

In its press release about the project, timed to coincide with the national Museums Association conference in Brighton, which starts today, Sarah Horne of BP or not BP? said: “It’s deeply ironic that BP is sponsoring an exhibition called Troy: Myth and Reality, because this sponsorship deal is essentially a Trojan Horse for BP’s real activities. Just like in the myth, BP pretends that it’s giving us a gift, when in reality it’s trying to smuggle its deadly climate-wrecking business plans past our defences.” Read the whole story here.

April 1, 2019December 15, 2023

In Review: April Fools’ Day 2019 Branding, Marketing, and Media Stunts

Before April Fools’ Day 2019 even began, the tech giant Microsoft announced that it would not be indulging in any branded foolishness this year. And that sort of set the tone for the day.

From the rise of the internet and social media through the election of Donald Trump, distinguishing truth from fiction in the online landscape has become less about comedy and more about horror. Even the cutest and cleverest April Fools’ publicity stunts are not as well received as they may have been in the past. The overall online mood is darker, more skittish, and more reflective. Still, there’s still some levity to be found in the chaos and desperation.

A few editorials addressed the cynicism and fatigue around April Fools’ Day from high-level perspectives.

Vox published a history of branded pranks in the internet age.
GQ examined how distrust of the media has sapped some of the fun from April Fools’.

Of the branded pranks that did go down, the most interesting had satirical or meta-comedic elements.

The LA Times took a catty swipe at its cross-country rival and New York’s self-important foodie scene.
The Nectar BumbleBed mocked the eccentric fads of the underregulated “health and wellness” industry.
The language-learning app Duolingo poked fun at its own infamously pushy mascot and UX in a cleverly disturbing way.
USA Today challenged its readers to differentiate real fakes from fake fakes.

Others were just plain, dumb, silly, marginally self-aware fun. Here are the best of the rest:

From the science-and-tech world
From gaming
From reddit
From a British angle
From the desks of Time, The Verge, and The Guardian

And there was even some good news!

Burger King’s meatless Whopper is not a joke!
Pranksters and comedians are not being displaced by AI!
April Fools’ news gags can help fight malicious fake news!

As with any holiday, the best way to spend April Fools’ Day is probably not on the internet, but engaged in revelry and camaraderie IRL, fighting the forces of oppression and no-fun-ness in the company of loved ones and loved ones you haven’t met yet. So naturally the best news of the day was the annual April Fools’ Day Parade – see the highlights [HERE].

February 9, 2019December 15, 2023

Confessions of a Rock and Roll Poser

Last autumn, Jered “Threatin” Eames staged the most alienating, least explicable rock tour stunt since the Sex Pistols hit the deep south. He recently broke his silence.

“The Great Heavy Metal Hoax”
by David Kushner
Rolling Stone
December 14, 2018

In November, managers of rock clubs across the United Kingdom began sharing the same weird tale. A pop-metal performer, Threatin, had rented their clubs for his 10-city European tour. Club owners had never heard of the act when a booking agent approached them promising packed houses. Threatin had fervent followers, effusive likes, rows of adoring comments under his YouTube concert videos, which showed him windmilling before a sea of fans. Websites for the record label, managers and a public-relations company who represented Threatin added to his legitimacy. Threatin’s Facebook page teemed with hundreds of fans who had RSVP’d for his European jaunt, which was supporting his album, Breaking the World.

But despite all the hype, almost no one came to the shows. It was just Threatin and his three-piece band onstage, and his wife, Kelsey, filming him from the empty floor. And yet Threatin didn’t seem to care — he just ripped through a set as if there was a full house. When confronted by confused club owners, Threatin just shrugged, blaming the lack of audience on bad promotion. “It was clear that something weird was happening,” says Jonathan “Minty” Minto, who was bartending the night Threatin played at the Exchange, a Bristol club, “but we didn’t realize how weird.” Intrigued, Minto and his friends started poking around Threatin’s Facebook page, only to find that most of the fans lived in Brazil. “The more we clicked,” says Minto, “the more apparent it became that every single attendee was bogus.”

It all turned out to be fake: The websites, the record label, the PR company, the management company, all traced back to the same GoDaddy account. The throngs of fans in Threatin’s concert videos were stock footage. The promised RSVPs never appeared. When word spread of Threatin’s apparent deception, club owners were perplexed: Why would someone go to such lengths just to play to empty rooms? Read more.