Donald Trump - The Art of the Prank

March 1, 2017December 15, 2023

How to Diversify Your Biased News Portfolio

Ever get the feeling you’re being pandered to? You don’t know the half of it. Here’s a company that hedges all bets in order to assure they get your ad dollars.

“This Is How Your Hyperpartisan Political News Gets Made”
by Craig Silverman
Buzzfeed News
February 27, 2017

The websites Liberal Society and Conservative 101 appear to be total opposites. The former publishes headlines such as “WOW, Sanders Just Brutally EVISCERATED Trump On Live TV. Trump Is Fuming.” Its conservative counterpart has stories like “Nancy Pelosi Just Had Mental Breakdown On Stage And Made Craziest Statement Of Her Career.”

So it was a surprise last Wednesday when they published stories that were almost exactly the same, save for a few notable word changes.

After CNN reported White House counselor Kellyanne Conway was “sidelined from television appearances,” both sites whipped up a post “” and outrage “” for their respective audiences. The resulting stories read like bizarro-world versions of each other “” two articles with nearly identical words and tweets optimized for opposing filter bubbles. The similarity of the articles also provided a key clue BuzzFeed News followed to reveal a more striking truth: These for-the-cause sites that appeal to hardcore partisans are in fact owned by the same Florida company.

Liberal Society and Conservative 101 are among the growing number of so-called hyperpartisan websites and associated Facebook pages that have sprung up in recent years, and that attracted significant traffic during the US election. A previous BuzzFeed News analysis of content published by conservative and liberal hyperpartisan sites found they reap massive engagement on Facebook with aggressively partisan stories and memes that frequently demonize the other side”s point of view, often at the expense of facts. Read more.

February 27, 2017December 15, 2023

World’s Largest Gathering of Trump Look-alikes for April Fools’ Day–It’s a Trumpathon!

Announcing New York City’s 32nd Annual April Fools’ Day Parade, kicking off Saturday, April 1, 2017 at 59th Street & 5th Avenue at 12 noon. This is a call for anyone who wants to participate. Check the press release for details and to print your Donald Trump Mask.

PRESS RELEASE
New York, New York — New York”s irreverent April Fools” Day Parade returns, poking fun once again at the past year”s displays of hype, hypocrisy, deceit, bigotry, and downright foolishness. Nothing is sacred. Our satire knows no bounds. The 32nd Annual April Fools” Day Parade will begin at Fifth Avenue and 59th Street at 12 noon, Saturday, April 1, 2017.

Rain or shine, the parade will march down Fifth Avenue to Washington Square Park for the climactic selection of the King of Fools from the costumed look-alikes. Marchers create outrageous floats and dress up in colorful costumes mirroring the folly of the previous year”s nuttiest politicians, corporate leaders, celebrities and whoever else has made a total fool of themselves.

This will be the world”s largest gathering of Donald Trump look-alikes. We”re going for a Guinness World Record for the largest assembly of Donald Trumps. Get your Donald Trump look-alike mask here. Print it, cut it out, and wear it to the parade. And please tweet and re-tweet about this epic TRUMPATHON!

The theme for this year”s parade is “MAKE RUSSIA GREAT AGAIN!” The Grand Marshall will be a Donald Trump look-alike. He will lead the All Brass Balls Marching Band (a.k.a. Trump”s Cabinet members), playing the Russian National Anthem. Color commentary will be provided by an Alec Baldwin look-alike as Donald Trump. The parade route will be showered with over 100 tons of confetti from fake news courtesy of Facebook, Twitter, Google, Fox News, InfoWars, Breitbart and others.

We”re announcing the 2017 King of Fools in advance this year. It”s Donald Trump. But to keep it democratic, there will be a vote at the end of the parade anyway.

Says Parade Organizer Joey Skaggs, “April Fools’ Day, once a day of celebrating alternative truth, has now officially been extended to 365 days of the year.”

Continue reading “World’s Largest Gathering of Trump Look-alikes for April Fools’ Day–It’s a Trumpathon!”

February 13, 2017December 15, 2023

Activism: Where the Action Is

The sprawling anti-Trump resistance movement has proven to be stronger, funnier, and more creative than any American countercultural force we’ve seen in decades.

As soon as the race was called, the backlash was inevitable. And, like ants at a picnic, the marketers were not far behind. The Guardian has a rundown on the new profits of rage.

“Sex Doesn’t Sell Anymore; Activism Does. And Don’t the Big Brands Know It.”
by Alex Holder
The Guardian
February 3, 2017

Three days ago I hadn”t heard of Lyft. Not until I was greeted on Monday morning by a right-on colleague demanding to know if I”d deleted my Uber app and replaced it with Lyft. On Saturday #deleteuber had been trending after many believed it had undermined a taxi strike at New York”s JFK airport protesting against Donald Trump”s immigration ban. By Sunday, with swift marketing prowess, Lyft”s CEO Logan Green tweeted that the company was donating $1m to the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union). Which led to Lyft”s downloads surpassing Ubers for the first time ever. They used to say sex sells; now, evidently, it”s activism.

Lyft wasn”t the only company flaunting good deeds this week. In reaction to Trump”s immigration ban, Starbucks CEO wrote an open letter to staff committing to hiring 10,000 refugees and Airbnb”s Brian Chesky tweeted that it was providing free accommodation to anyone not allowed in the US. Even Uber, presumably in a bid to outdo Lyft, created a $3m fund to help drivers affected by the “wrong and unjust” ban.

Companies are now attempting to outdo each other with major acts of generosity, but there”s a catch; they”ll do good as long as they can make sure their customers know about it. There is no room for humility when a brand does a good deed. They”re always Larry David and never the anonymous donor. Continue reading “Activism: Where the Action Is”

February 8, 2017December 15, 2023

Trump’s Security Detail Unimpressed With Ballsy Golf Course Stunt

Noted British prankster Simon Brodkin hits Donald Trump where it hurts, and columnist Pat Kane reflects. (Feel free to share your own testicular puns through social media.)

“Why Serious Stuff Still Demands a Sense of Humour”
by Pat Kane
The National
February 4, 2017

So if you”re going to prank Donald Trump by chucking swastika-covered golfballs at him, as he opens one of his tremendous courses, you should do it at Trump Turnberry.

According to the comedian Simon Brodkin, whose stage name is Lee Nelson and who perpetrated said stunt last June, he was slumped in custody when a Scottish sergeant noted: “You”re that guy”.

“In that moment I realised I had an ally,” recalled Brodkin this week. “They loosened the cuffs so the blood went back to my fingers and asked if I wanted some Lucozade. Big love for the Scottish police.”

In next week”s Channel Four documentary Britain”s Greatest Hoaxer, Brodkin also relates that the Scottish police refused to let Trump”s secret service people interview him. Instead they sped him to the nearest airport and told him to “get the hell out of the country”.

As the furore rises around Trump”s potential state visit, the question of how modern dissent and protest is most effectively expressed comes to the fore. On this occasion, should it be a dignified boycott by political leaders (as all the Scottish political leaders did last June), and a protest action mutually agreed between activists and police? Or is Brodkin”s kind of hoax the best way to get an oppositional message under the plates of the Great Narcissist?

Watching the enthusiastic Brodkin”s preparations for his hoax – involving disguise, costume (a Trump Turnberry sweatshirt), bags hidden under hotel beds and the ludicrously easy detection of the Sunbed God”s itinerary – you imagine this kind of prank will never be achievable again.

The scene where his goons are scrabbling around the grass, filling red Trump caps with Nazi-balls, is inordinately pleasing. But no doubt the full apparatus – human and technological – of American and British national security will be sweeping and detecting every clump of cells that gets anywhere near the man-baby. Read more.

February 1, 2017December 15, 2023

Jon Stewart: “Bullshit Only” Replaces “English Only” Movement

The bullshit is getting so deep, soon we’ll need to walk around on stilts.

Jon Stewart: President Donald Trump Is Making Bulls**t The Official U.S. Language, by Ed Mazza, Huffington Post, February 2, 2017

He also found what may be the one saving grace of the Trump presidency.

Watch the video…

Jon Stewart is back, and he wasted no time going after President Donald Trump.

Appearing on the “Late Show With Stephen Colbert” on Tuesday night, the former “Daily Show” host made some unusual wardrobe choices in honor of the new president.

“The president sets men”s fashion,” Stewart said. “I saw the inauguration, super-long tie, dead animal on head.”

So wearing a dead animal on his head “” and a super-long tie “” Stewart proceeded to read what he claimed were some upcoming executive orders. One of them was to make bullshit the official language of the United States.

“I, Donald J. Trump, have instructed my staff to speak only in bullshit,” Stewart read. “And by the way, none of that “˜Sure, I”ll speak bullshit at work but at home I”m going to use facts and real information.” No! Bullshit all the time. Immersion: It”s the only way to be fluent.”