…Exploring the role of the prankster as artist, activist and social observer and the significance of the prank in society.
60 years ago, in 1966 on Easter Sunday, Joey Skaggs dragged his iconoclastic sculpture of a naked and decayed figure of Jesus Christ on a crucifix into Tompkins Square Park on the lower east side. It was his personal statement about the war in Vietnam and the hypocrisy of religion.
This was the beginning of Skaggs’ career as an artist who used the streets as his theater.
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.
50 years ago on April 1, 1976, in response to a subpoena issued by the New York State Attorney General, Joey Skaggs revealed that his Cathouse for Dogs (doggy bordello) was a satirical media performance hoax.
Who do you believe? Me or your lying eyes?
NOTE: To see the Moltbots (supposedly) in action, visit here: https://www.moltbook.com/m/general
“Moltbook was peak AI theater,” by Will Douglas Heaven, MIT Technology Review, February 6, 2026.
The viral social network for bots reveals more about our own current mania for AI as it does about the future of agents.
For a few days this week the hottest new hangout on the internet was a vibe-coded Reddit clone called Moltbook, which billed itself as a social network for bots. As the website’s tagline puts it: “Where AI agents share, discuss, and upvote. Humans welcome to observe.”
We observed! Launched on January 28 by Matt Schlicht, a US tech entrepreneur, Moltbook went viral in a matter of hours. Schlicht’s idea was to make a place where instances of a free open-source LLM-powered agent known as OpenClaw (formerly known as ClawdBot, then Moltbot), released in November by the Austrian software engineer Peter Steinberger, could come together and do whatever they wanted. Read the whole article here.
Thanksgiving Dinner 44 years ago.
Joey Skaggs, with the help of friends, students from the School of Visual Arts, and Abyssinian Baptist Choir, created a stark portrayal of a Thanksgiving feast at the United Nations Plaza on Thanksgiving Day.