Blog Posts

Improv Everywhere: No Pants Subway 2017

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Filed under: Culture Jamming and Reality Hacking, Practical Jokes and Mischief

From Charlie Todd of Improv Everywhere:

On Sunday, January 8th, 2017 tens of thousands of people took off their pants on subways in over 60 cities in over 25 countries around the world. In New York, our 16th Annual No Pants Subway Ride took place in windy 22F degree weather and was spread out over seven meeting points and eleven subway lines. Thanks to everyone who participated all around the globe! Enjoy the video!

We’re Gonna Need More Enthusiasm

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Filed under: Culture Jamming and Reality Hacking, Fraud and Deception, Hype, Media Literacy, Media Pranks, Pranksters

Davy Rothbard of Found fame profiles a company that hires out fake crowds. H/t Dave Pell.


“Crowd Source: Inside the company that provides fake paparazzi, pretend campaign supporters, and counterfeit protesters”
by Davy Rothbard
The California Sunday Magazine
March 31, 2016

scale-2000x0x0x0-0403ffcrow-1459210886-6

When he can, Adam trains his hired crowds himself, but more often he relies on local coordinators who manage the events. In Los Angeles, Del Brown “” the woman I met at the Marriott “” is Adam”™s point person. Del moved to California in 2012 to pursue an acting career and soon landed a Doritos commercial, but after that, she mostly found work as an extra in student films and small indie projects. She worked a gig with Crowds on Demand, and Adam was so impressed he immediately put her on staff. Del has established a wide network she can reach out to when she needs, say, 60 crowd-fillers for a party on the roof deck of the W Los Angeles hotel or a 6-foot-6-inch man in a leather kilt to act as a fan at the launch of a book about S&M culture. Many of Del”™s recurring crowd members are background actors she”™s met on film sets, yet she is continually trawling for fresh faces.

At the Marriott, I”™d met Jackie Greig, who typifies the crowd members Del and Adam often hire. Jackie is 50 years old, a film student at Los Angeles City College. A teacher had shared a posting about what she thought was an upcoming film shoot that was looking for paid help. Jackie showed up at the Marriott only to discover that this was not a film shoot. Yes, she was being asked to aim her camera at the life coaches, but whether she hit record was immaterial. On one hand, Jackie was frustrated. She”™d skipped class and driven more than an hour to be there. On the other hand, after a couple of hours, she”™d made $37.50 and could now afford a Foo Fighters concert for her daughter. “I just wish they”™d been more transparent about what the gig really was,” Jackie tells me.

If you”™re hiring a crowd to fill a campaign event or a film premiere, the last thing you want to do is let anyone know.

The tricky thing, Adam says, is how many of his clients insist on secrecy. If you”™re hiring a crowd to fill a campaign event or a film premiere, the last thing you want to do is let anyone know. Adam must balance his goal of spreading awareness of his company, so he can attract more clients, with the benefits of keeping the public in the dark. If people start to doubt the veracity of crowds, his business might suffer. “Right now, we”™re still kind of this secret weapon,” Adam says. “We have the element of surprise. Yeah, you might”™ve heard about political candidates paying to bring some extra bodies into their campaign events, but it”™s beyond the realm of most people”™s imagination that crowds are being deployed in other ways. Nobody is skeptical of crowds. Of course, in five years that could change.”

Adam says he gives Del wide latitude to recruit crowd members. Most often, she presents the gigs as background acting work. This is only slightly misleading: Crowd members won”™t bulk up their IMDB profile, but being part of a fake crowd is a kind of acting. In a world where everybody is constantly playing a part, staging moments to be broadcast later on social media, the line between counterfeit and authentic has become blurred. Is curating a version of yourself on Facebook any less fake than pretending to be a superfan of a life coach? Read more.


Improv Everywhere: Global No Pants Subway Ride 2016 – This Sunday!

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Filed under: Culture Jamming and Reality Hacking, Practical Jokes and Mischief

We’ve posted the full details for the The 15th Annual No Pants Subway Ride, taking place on January 10, 2016 in New York and dozens of cities around the world. Participate!

Improv Everywhere No Pants Subway 2015

â–ª Details for NYC
â–ª Details for other cities around the world

Improv Everywhere: No Pants Subway Ride 2015

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Filed under: Culture Jamming and Reality Hacking, Practical Jokes and Mischief

From Charlie Todd of Improv Everywhere:


No Pants Subway Ride 2015

On Sunday, January 11th, 2015 tens of thousands of people took off their pants on subways in over 60 cities in over 25 countries around the world. In New York, [the] 14th Annual No Pants Subway Ride had over 4,000 participants, spread out over seven meeting points and eleven subway lines.

no pants subway 2015

Watch the video:

More photos and info here.

Improv Everywhere: Black Tie Beach 2014

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Filed under: Culture Jamming and Reality Hacking, Pranksters

From Charlie Todd of Improv Everywhere:


Black Tie Beach 2014   Improv Everywhere-425

For the Fifth Annual Black Tie Beach, hundreds of participants spent a day at the beach in black tie attire. We covered Coney Island with a diverse group of people of all ages laying out, playing games, and swimming in the ocean in formal wear. Agents were instructed to find cheap tuxedos and ball gowns at thrift stores for the occasion. The event also happened on the same day in several other cities around the world, including Boston and Jacksonville.

Watch the video:

See more photos and info here.

UPCOMING: The Mp3 Experiment Eleven will take place on Saturday, September 20 at a location to be announced in Brooklyn, NY. Once again we are staging the Mp3 Experiment TWICE this year. It will take place at 2 PM and 6 PM. Save the date! This event, as always, is free and open to all.


Improv Everywhere: The Mannequin Mob

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Filed under: Culture Jamming and Reality Hacking, Practical Jokes and Mischief

From Charlie Todd of Improv Everywhere:


For our latest mission, we surprised shoppers and employees at the 5th Avenue Gap in Manhattan by giving the store 40 extra mannequins.

mannequinmob

Performers entered the store wearing white Morphsuits under Gap-style clothing and then zipped up their suits and froze in place next to the store’s actual mannequins. Most everyone loved it, except Gap security, who called 911.

Watch the video:

More details and photos here.
More about Improv Everywhere here.

Russian Flash Mob

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Filed under: Culture Jamming and Reality Hacking

From Erin


A couple of years old, but fitting to welcome in the Sochi Olympics

Watch the video

Chinese Flight Attendant Flash Mob

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Filed under: Culture Jamming and Reality Hacking

Pudong flight attendants in Shanghai stage flash mob dance to entertain passengers as the Chinese Spring Festival begins.

Watch the video:

No Pants Subway Ride 2014

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Filed under: Culture Jamming and Reality Hacking, Practical Jokes and Mischief

From Charlie Todd of Improv Everywhere


No Pants Subway Ride 2014

beijing

On Sunday, January 12th, 2014 tens of thousands of people took off their pants on subways in over 60 cities in over 25 countries around the world. The above photo is from Beijing. In New York, our 13th Annual No Pants Subway Ride had over 4,000 participants, spread out over seven meeting points and eleven subway lines.

Watch the video

For more photos and information, visit here.

More about Improv Everywhere here.

Diner en Blanc, New York 2012

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Filed under: Culture Jamming and Reality Hacking

Thousands gather for NYC secret outdoor dinner
by Verena Dobnik
Associated Press
August 20, 2012

New York (AP) – Guess who came to dinner?

On Monday night in Manhattan, the answer was 3,000 people – all dressed in white, descending on the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

The venue was a surprise until just before the flash-mob feast started at 7 p.m. Registered guests got emails telling them where to go.

They brought chairs, tables, food and drink, plus candles and snow white balloons sailing high above the main plaza at sunset. Row after white row filled the space around a high-shooting fountain – free of charge, with legal permits. (more…)

Improv Everywhere: Car Alarm Symphony

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Filed under: Culture Jamming and Reality Hacking

From Charlie Todd of Improv Everywhere:


Car Alarm Symphony

For our latest mission, we made 100 car alarms go off simultaneously in a shopping center parking lot in Staten Island.

After parking their cars, 100 participants grouped together behind a 10-foot tall wall in a dead end on the other side of the lot. Participants were then conducted like an orchestra as they pressed their horn or “panic” buttons on their keyless entry remotes. Shoppers and employees at the Lowe”™s and Kohl”™s stores were surprised by this unauthorized and mercifully brief project.

(more…)

Flash Mobsters

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Filed under: Hoax Etiquette, Practical Jokes and Mischief

For flash mobsters, crowd size a tempting cover
by Eric Tucker and Thomas Watkins
AP
August 9, 2011

The July 4 fireworks display in the Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights was anything but a family affair.

As many as 1,000 teenagers, mobilized through social networking sites, turned out and soon started fighting and disrupting the event.

Thanks to social networks like Twitter and Facebook, more and more so-called flash mobs are materializing across the globe, leaving police scrambling to keep tabs on the spontaneous assemblies.

“They’re gathering with an intent behind it – not just to enjoy the event,” Shaker Heights Police Chief D. Scott Lee said. “All too often, some of the intent is malicious.”

Flash mobs started off in 2003 as peaceful and often humorous acts of public performance, such as mass dance routines or street pillow fights. But in recent years, the term has taken a darker twist as criminals exploit the anonymity of crowds, using social networking to coordinate everything from robberies to fights to general chaos. (more…)

Artist Zefrey Throwall Loses His Shirt on Wall Street

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Filed under: Culture Jamming and Reality Hacking

From Tim Jackson: “Putting it all on the line – a fine performance!”


A Bare Market Lasts One Morning
by Melena Ryzik
The New York Times
August 1, 2011

It was an early Monday morning like any other on Wall Street. Before most of the blue-shirted financiers descended, there came an army of helpers: the custodians and coffee fetchers, personal trainers and headsetted assistants who make the money street run smoothly. They marched along the sidewalks, in a hurry to start their workweek.

Zefrey Throwell, who devised the project, speaking with a police officer on Wall Street. Mr. Throwell also participated in “Ocularpation,” playing the part of a hot dog vendor.

Here and there, though, a few people were slowing down, like the trader barking into his cellphone in the calm before the market opened. He paused to loosen his tie. Unbutton his shirt. Take off his pants.

“He”™s buck-naked “” Lord have mercy!” a woman said, stopping to gawk at, loudly judge and then photograph a sudden expanse of flesh. (more…)

Crowdsourcing Michael Jackson

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How Michael Jackson”™s Virtual Flash Mob Was Crowdsourced
by Eliot Van Buskirk
evolver.fm
June 14, 2011

The king of pop might be gone, but he”™s not forgotten.

A massive collaborative act of music video creation by “” and for “” his fans has helped make sure of that. Thousands of MJ fans worldwide contributed to the posthumous Michael Jackson music video for “Behind the Mask” released Tuesday on the star”™s Facebook page.

Director Dennis Liu told Evolver.fm that the video was inspired by Jackson”™s own work, in particular, his 1991 “Black or White” video, with its emphasis on “connecting” people “” something that today”™s social technologies are sometimes about, too.

The idea of having people act out moves from the video came from the crowd too, according to the director “” in particular, flash mobs in which everyone from Philippene prisoners to Swedish volunteers dances to his music.

The new video for the song “Behind the Mask” premiered on Facebook, where Jackson”™s regularly-updated presence has been “liked” nearly 36 million times “” a large number that pales in comparison to the over 750 million albums he is said to have sold.

This crowdsourced, professionally-produced video was under tight wraps until today, but director Dennis Liu, whose other clients have included both Apple and Microsoft, gave Evolver.fm a verbal preview of the virtual flash mob he made from the over 15,000 videos submitted by fans since March.

Read more about how the video was produced here.

No Pants Subway Ride 2011

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Filed under: Culture Jamming and Reality Hacking, Pranksters

From Charlie Todd of Improv Everywhere:


On Sunday, January 9th, 2011 over 5,000 people took off their pants on subways in 48 cities in 22 countries around the world. In New York, our 10th Annual No Pants Subway Ride had over 3,500 participants, spread out over six meeting points and ten subway lines. Watch the video below.

For more information and photos, visit Improv Everywhere.

For more posts about Improv Everywhere, click here.