Spin - The Art of the Prank

August 20, 2025

A Bunch of Swinging Dicks

Peckerheads for Cryptocurrency…

“Group Takes Credit For Throwing Sex Toys At WNBA Games And Reveals Its Motives,” by Pocharapon Neammanee, Huffpost, August 8, 2025.

The stunt somehow seems even stupider now, and to make matters worse, Donald Trump Jr. chimed in.

Cryptocurrency creators are now taking credit for throwing sex toys onto the court at multiple WNBA games, saying they intended to stir up controversy and promote their memecoin.

The self-confessed dildo-throwers say they launched the memecoin Green Dildo Coin on the Ethereum blockchain on July 28, a day before the first dildo-tossing incident. After Barstool Sports reported on the group’s identity on Wednesday, the price of the coin skyrocketed.

Read the whole article here.

August 8, 2025

When They Say Prices Are Slashed, They Mean It!

Killer Fitness: A store/exercise studio combo where disgruntled customers never dare complain. (h/t Alex Case)

“Working out in public can be scary! Killer Fitness embraces the horror with ‘Slashercise’,” by Lina Lecaro, Los Angeles Times, July 30, 2025.

Killer Fitness in Burbank offers horror-themed workouts like “Slashercise,” combining fitness with spooky props and aesthetics.

On a recent 90-degree morning, a dozen or so gals and a couple guys of varying ages and sizes, some wearing flamboyant retro leg warmers and spandex, stand outside of a hot pink and black Burbank storefront.

They’re all about to fight for their lives and test their endurance during an hour-long workout like no other. While they jump, kick and punch, menacing monsters and serial killers (Pinhead from “Hellraiser,” Freddy Krueger from “A Nightmare on Elm Street”) appear behind them, looped on a giant video screen.

Will they survive Slashercise?

Read the whole article here.

August 8, 2025

A Trumpish Homage to Trump

Artist Andres Serrano wants you to live the fantasy:

“Andres Serrano Proposes Trump Altar for the Venice Biennale,” by Isa Farfan, Hyperallergic, July 24, 2025.

“It makes sense to me that for America’s 250th Celebration, there’s no one better to represent America than the President,” the photographer told Hyperallergic.

New York City-born artist and provocateur Andres Serrano wants the United States Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale to showcase his apparently uncritical display of more than a thousand Trump memorabilia items, including a flattering, warm-hued portrait of the president he took in 2004 as part of his series America.

Serrano, who rose to notoriety in the late ’80s for “Piss Christ” (1987), a photograph of a crucifix that he plunged into a receptacle of his own urine on the National Endowment for the Arts’ dime, submitted his Trump-themed Venice proposal to the US Department of State ahead of its deadline later this month. The artist calls his American flag-saturated vision The Game: All Things Trump, a reference to an underperforming board game released by Milton Bradley Company in 1989.

Read the whole article here.

August 8, 2025

Stepping in Imaginary Shit

Spinal Tap revisited decades later:

“Spotify hit band The Velvet Sundown comes clean on AI,” by Trevor Mogg, Digital Trends, July 6, 2025.

The Velvet Sundown burst onto the music scene in early June and in the space of just a few weeks gained an astonishing 400,000 monthly listeners on Spotify.

But its bland music style, hyper-realistic band images, and lack of a digital footprint quickly led many people to suspect that the The Velvet Sundown was AI-generated. And it turns out they were right.

After weeks of speculation, a new message posted on its Spotify page over the weekend finally admitting that the band and its music are the work of generative AI.

Read the whole article here.

February 28, 2025

A Sign of the Times

The writing’s on the wall and the bus stop…

The Street Artist Behind the Viral “Anti-Elon Musk” Ads, by Rhea Nayyar, Hyperallergic, February 24, 2025

Winston Tseng’s satirical ad falsely attributed to USAID at a bike dock in Washington, DC, elicited frenzied responses from Republican Senator Thom Tillis.

Street artist Winston Tseng was behind an anti-Elon Musk ad that led to a viral frenzy when it was installed in various sidewalk ad spaces within a mile of the White House two weeks ago. The ad, satirically attributed to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), read “Help Eliminate Elon” and featured a large red X crossing over an illustration of Musk doing the Nazi salute.

“In the spirit of transparency, I should disclose that USAID paid me $69M (in condoms) for this ad,” Tseng said in an email to Hyperallergic, riffing on Musk’s misunderstanding of the US’s provisions for international HIV prevention and treatment.