…Exploring the role of the prankster as artist, activist and social observer and the significance of the prank in society.
The Bank of Trump is pleased to announce a $5,000 gift to every American! Get yours on joeyskaggs.com.
Is it legal? Who’s going to stop him?
Will it raise the national debt? Who cares?
You can pay him back in November. Vote Republican! That’s the deal.
A self-described Italian archeologist “makes” history, literally.
h/t Uwe
‘A sucker born every minute’: The man who duped tourists with a fake Greek amphitheater, by Julia Buckley, CNN, August 24, 2026.
Of the eight TripAdvisor reviews of the amphitheater near Arcugnano, in Italy’s northern Veneto region, all give fulsome, five-star praise.
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.
AI takes the F train. h/t Deborah
Fake AI ads in the West 4th Street subway station unite commuters in hatred of AI ads, by Emma Li, Gothamist, August 10, 2026.
“Riding the subway, all I would see were AI ads that made me confused and angry,” Alterman said. “I wanted to know if other people felt the same way.”
In June, an Instagram reel of fake tech advertisements being put up on Subway station walls went viral, gathering 5 million views and more than 250,000 likes. The faux ads were made by Harris Alterman and Dave Ross, two comedians whose usual content caters to the meta-ironic and absurdist appetites of the internet.
One ad read, “What if forks were spoons?” by the fake company, “cutlery.ai.”
Another said, “1 + 1 = _____. Dennis can tell you.”
