Stunts and Pranks
Thursday, March 6th, 2008
Story Notes:
What is it about stunts and pranks that cause such a large following online? That’s what I investigate in today’s Pop17.
I pulled a stunt where I dressed up as Optimus Prime from Transformers and tried to order from McDonald’s for Gizmodo in San Francisco.
The Tokyo Dance Trooper pulled his stunt once and it grew to be an overnight hit. So he did it again and again.
Improv everywhere is the best example of a group of people who have performed stunts over and over. They are most well known for their frozen grand central video. The Best Buy and mobile desktop videos are some of my personal favorites.
Generate, who raised 6 million last week, has signed Improv Everywhere.
iTunes
Miro
RSS
Man at the YouTube gathering in NYC in july Eepybird was gonna do their diet coke and mentos thing, but the park police shut them down :(
I think Nalts lead a bunch of other video bloggers to set off the bottles anyway (and then ran from the park police), but still, it would’ve been cool to see the diet coke and mentos rube goldberg thinger.
@Bradley O’Farrell, I have seen them at both Maker Faire’s and one of them was in Austin. By the way, I’m going to Austin tomorrow for SXSW. Are you going?
Stormtrooper thing was cool.
Ah, I wanted to go, I’m from the Austin area and my friend Callianne’s band is going (Beasts and Super Beasts) but I have three hour weekend classes at CUNY and I already missed too much going to As One last week. Oh well, it looks awesome though, maybe I’ll go next year.
@Bradley so you are at CUNY? Cool! Do you know Jeff Jarvis? He teaches there and I’m a big fan of his.
The Improv Everywhere are fantastic. Is it too 70’s to call it happenings? ;)
Do you ever think that Stunts and Pranks take away from the respect earned from other people and purpose of what a person does? Doing something crazy can throw your name out there, but what if no one will let you interview them for fear that you might do something crazy on camera?
@Boring Market, your comment makes me think about Gizmodogate. Remember when Richard turned off the TV screens? That was a huge prank at CES this year. It even got in the NY Times. I suppose that prank hurt Gizmodo because a lot of bloggers bashed them. What do you think?
I just started there this semester, and I’m doing night classes and stuff, so, I don’t know him, but I’ll look out for his name next time I register.
@Bradley, please do so. If you have time read this blog post about it:
http://tinyurl.com/2vakdv
I wrote it at the Always On conference and even got an interview with Jeff Jarvis!
That is so funny with the transformer head. You have some good ideas Sarah!
Thanks Dale!
Cool Sarah, I just subscribed to his blog.
My Google Reader is all like nom nom nom.
Hmm..I want one of those Optimus Prime things :D
It was cool to meet you… ;-)
Hi Vinvin, nice to see you too! Thanks for watching and commenting.
@Sarah, I think Gizmodo would be less likely to get invited to these high profile conferences, though they are a pretty big name to get in anyways. In my mind, they lost a lot of creditability as a blogging network because it strips them of authority and they have lost a lot of respect in the blogging community.
@Boring Market, that’s what Robert Scoble says. It did that to Gizmodo for sure and there were people who were torn in both directions. I took it as a joke, but most people took offense to it. Woz is also a prankster and thinks it’s a harmless joke too.
One thing is for sure: we won’t forget gizmodo gate.
Sarah, I enjoy your videos and insight. Totally constructively speaking, I felt like this was a nice overview for someone who might not be familiar with these viral stunts, but didn’t offer much that most of us here don’t already know. An interview with one of these pranksters might have been a nice bonus (but perhaps not feasible–I don’t know). I look forward to hearing more on this and other great stuff in the future. :)
Yeah but what if you actually do work at McDonald’s and you’re watching the latest video. Wouldn’t it be annoying? Oh! it’s supposed to be a stunt I forgot. It’s miraculous what boobs can do for you, whether it be sponsorship or venture capital.
Yeah, that video of your Transformers prank is over a year old..
@Hai Der, it’s not over a year old. I filmed that six months ago in 07. That video I made rounded up about a million views across all platforms and is growing.
That video was a pretty big deal. It even got me on ABC news.
x, Sarah aka Optimus Prime.
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