hoaxers - The Art of the Prank

September 24, 2014December 15, 2023

Fake Marketing Company Announces Fake Naked Photos

Hoax instructional: How to deceive, deflect and scam the scandal hungry media and the all-believing public. Why? Just because.

The Emma Watson Naked Photo Countdown Was The Work Of Serial Internet Hoaxers
by James Cook
Business Insider
September 24, 2014

A mysterious countdown website emerged on Monday that hinted at the imminent reveal of naked photographs of the actress Emma Watson, stolen using the same iCloud vulnerability that hackers used to steal photographs of stars like Kate Upton and Jennifer Lawrence.

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As Business Insider reported on Monday, it’s highly unlikely that anyone has naked photographs of Emma Watson (we probably would have seen them by now, because she’s a top target for iCloud hackers). Instead the site seemed like an obvious prank designed to discredit 4chan users.

Sure enough, when the countdown came to an end, the site redirected to the website of a company named Rantic Marketing, which appears to be a viral marketing agency. But here’s where this gets really interesting: Rantic Marketing doesn’t exist. This wasn’t a marketing stunt at all, but a social experiment run by the most notorious gang of pranksters on the internet.

Continue reading “Fake Marketing Company Announces Fake Naked Photos”

August 9, 2011December 15, 2023

Banksy’s Antics Roadshow Premiers on Channel 4 in the UK Saturday

Joey Skaggs was interviewed for Banksy’s upcoming television documentary The Antics Roadshow set to air on Channel 4 in the UK this Saturday, August 13 at 10:45 pm, following the television premiere of “Exit Through the Gift Shop.” Directed by Banksy and Jaimie D’Cruz, produced by Melody Howse.

Quoted from Channel 4:

“Banksy’s ‘incomplete guide to total anarchy’ provides a greatest hits of wayward behaviour, sedition and sabotage.

“The Antics Roadshow is a celebration of the pranksters, hoaxers, jokers, activists and stunt merchants who use public space for their own unauthorised ends. This film brings together a wide range of individuals with all sorts of motivations: but they have all hijacked the public arena to make a noise, be it for comedic, artistic or political ends, and they have all done so using a variety of illicit, and eccentric methods which an audience should probably not try at home.

“Explaining his reasoning behind the show, Banksy said: ‘Basically I just thought it was a good name for a TV programme and I’ve been working back from there’.

“Narrated by Kathy Burke, The Antics Roadshow examines the stories behind some of the most audacious stunts of recent times and what motivates the perpetrators, from mindless boredom to heartfelt political beliefs.”

September 19, 2010December 15, 2023

Joaquin Phoenix & Casey Affleck Expose Themselves

Update from news.softpedia.com, September 21, 2010: David Letterman Was In on the Joaquin Phoenix Hoax

Documentary? Better Call It Performance Art
by Michael Cieply
The New York Times
September 16, 2010

Casey Affleck wants to come clean.

South Pasadena, Calif. His new movie, “I”m Still Here,” was performance. Almost every bit of it. Including Joaquin Phoenix”s disturbing appearance on David Letterman”s late-night show in 2009, Mr. Affleck said in a candid interview at a cafe here on Thursday morning.

“It”s a terrific performance, it”s the performance of his career,” Mr. Affleck said. He was speaking of Mr. Phoenix”s two-year portrayal of himself “” on screen and off “” as a bearded, drug-addled aspiring rap star, who, as Mr. Affleck tells it, put his professional life on the line to star in a bit of “gonzo filmmaking” modeled on the reality-bending journalism of Hunter S. Thompson.

“I”m Still Here” was released last week by Magnolia Pictures to scathing reviews by a number of critics, including Roger Ebert, who wrote that the film was “a sad and painful documentary that serves little useful purpose other than to pound another nail into the coffin.”

“The reviews were so angry,” said Mr. Affleck, who attributed much of the hostility to his own long silence about a film that left more than a few viewers wondering what was real “” The drugs? The hookers? The childhood home-movie sequences in the beginning? “” and what was not. Continue reading “Joaquin Phoenix & Casey Affleck Expose Themselves”