…Exploring the role of the prankster as artist, activist and social observer and the significance of the prank in society.
Why you don’t take your guillotine to a gun fight…
Man arrested after guillotine is found in pickup truck near Capitol, by Kyle Stewart and Raquel Coronell Uribe, NBC News, August 25, 2026.
In 2024, Joey Skaggs’ New York City Annual April Fools’ Day Parade featured “Democracy at the Guillotine” on a mobile billboard truck, therefore avoiding a showdown with the law.
Who are you going to believe, me or your lying poll?
Website behind widely shared fake election polls run by 21-year-old, by Sophie Sullivan, Anna Betts and Sam Levine, The Guardian, August 20, 2026.
Exclusive: Rahil Prakash tells the Guardian: ‘I wanted to see if fake polls could penetrate the ecosystem that easily’
A 21-year-old recent college graduate was behind an anonymous website that put out widely shared fake election polling in Wisconsin, Nevada and California, the Guardian can reveal.
The website, Median Strategies, abruptly shut down and withdrew its polling earlier this week following questions from a reporter from the Los Angeles Times. In an unsigned statement, it described a “short-term social experiment” to examine how fake polling “could enter and spread through the political information ecosystem without independent verification”.
You too can help a billionaire in need.
Reminds us of Joey Skaggs’ Geraldo Hoax about artists living in water towers.
A comedian’s joke pied-à-terre tax workaround could actually go legit after struggling New Yorkers and homeowners flooded inbox, by Mary K. Jacob, New York Post, August 20, 2026.
A stand-up comedian’s satirical stab at Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s new luxury home tax has snowballed into something she never expected to actually build.
Madison Walser, who splits time between New York and Los Angeles, launched a website called Aura Investments back in May as pure internet bait. The pitch was simple and absurd: struggling artists move into vacant apartments owned by wealthy second-home owners, and in exchange those owners dodge the city’s pied-à-terre tax.
If it was gold, he would have taken it.
Giant Iran War ‘Participation Trophy’ For Trump Appears On National Mall, by Jennifer Bendery, Huffpost, July 13, 2026.
Anonymous artists installed a 10-foot monument satirically honoring Trump for starting a war with no “military strategy, diplomacy, or measurable outcomes.”
WASHINGTON — A 10-foot “participation trophy” magically appeared on the National Mall early Monday to satirically honor President Donald Trump for unilaterally starting a war in Iran with no strategy, no stated goals and no plan on how to get the United States out of it.
“We hereby award President Donald J. Trump this participation trophy for his enthusiastic involvement in the Iran War,” reads a plaque on the faux monument, which was installed in the wee hours near the MLK Memorial Bookstore. “While some concern themselves with military strategy, diplomacy, or measurable outcomes, President Trump demonstrated the courage to participate regardless of the final score.” Read the whole article here.
New York City’s greatest pranks, from fantastical parades to a phony Mets star, by Samantha Max, Gothamist, April 1, 2026
Artist and activist Joey Skaggs has been inviting members of the New York City media to his annual April Fools’ Day parade along Fifth Avenue since 1986.
Press releases archived on Skaggs’ website describe the event as an attempt to “bring people back in touch with their inherent foolishness” and celebrate “the public’s right to laugh in the face of authority.” Past parades have included a President Donald Trump look-alike contest and a Y2K-themed end-of-the-world party. This year’s press release invites participants to ponder “what’s real and what’s not” at a parade led by the president himself, followed by a screening of the “Melania mockumentary” and a reading of all redacted names in the Jeffrey Epstein files, other than victims.