photo by John Curley

Santacon 2009 events are currently being planned around the world this December as Christmas approaches. Over on santarchy.com I’ve been actively tracking the cities currently being targeted for Santarchy invasions.

To get a better idea of what Santarchy is all about, here’s my 40 minute documentary on the 1996 Santacon in Portland “You’d Better Watch Out: Portland Santacon ‘96″.

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The Skydiving Prank, the 8th prank in the 4 year long Prank War between CollegeHumor employees Streeter Seidell and Amir Blumenfeld.

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“I Love Lunch! The Musical” is the latest mission by Improv Everywhere, where they staged a spontaneous musical during lunch in The Atrium at Trump Tower in NYC.

The mission was filmed as part of a segment for The Today Show, which gives a behind-the-scenes look at how it was was planned.

If you look closely, you’ll see that Improv Everywhere founder Charlie Todd is wearing a Laughing Squid t-shirt during the rehearsals.

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photos by diabetik

Street artist diabetik has been installing “Candy Corn” traffic cones around the streets of Washington DC for Halloween. Back in April it was Peeps for Easter.

via DCist

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On a recent episode of The Jay Leno Show, Rainn Wilson shows us how to pull off Halloween Super-Pranks. The home’s occupant wasn’t too pleased.

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Grocery Store Musical, the latest mission by Improv Everywhere.

For our latest mission, six undercover actors burst into song in a grocery store in Queens. Three minutes and lots of silly choreography later, they returned to their roles as shoppers and stock boys. The mission was filmed with hidden robotic, lipstick, and wearable cameras.

photo by Katie Sokoler

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Nathaniel Kassel rides his bike around New York City giving high fives to people who are hailing cabs. The people’s reactions are priceless.

via The Presurfer

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In order to prove The Fun Theory, Volkswagen wanted to see if they could get people to use the stairs instead an escalator at the Odenplan subway station in Stockholm, Sweden, by turning the stairs into a giant piano. 66% more commuters than normal ended up choosing the stairs over the escalator.

We believe that the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better is by making it fun to do. We call it The fun theory.

As part of this series, Volkswagen also created The World’s Deepest Trash Can.

via TreeHugger

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Improv Everywhere agents take 2,000 invisible dogs for a walk in Brooklyn.

For our latest mission, over 2,000 people walked “invisible dogs” down the streets of Brooklyn on a Sunday afternoon. The leashes were on loan from the current owner of 51 Bergen Street, the factory space where the invisible dog toy was invented in the 1970s. Participants of all ages spread out from Red Hook to Brooklyn Heights, very seriously walking their very silly dogs.

photo by Chad Nicholson

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guest post by Violet Blue

Comedy is truth: While some of us scratch our heads and wonder how an environment for jobs like “social media guru” and pay-per-Tweet advertising can exist, others create scathingly brilliant and hilarious videos about an environment that is so very ripe for parody. As of today, no one’s done it better than Markham Nolan and his public service announcement video The Social Media Guru. It’s also a promo for Xtranormal Beta, text-to-video moviemaking software that we hope will be available for Mac users sooner than later. Still, the truth hurts. Telling us he’ll gladly give us a special offer for advice on our Twitter accounts (translation: “I’ll sit on your Facebook and whack you up the Twitter. Financially.”) Nolan peels back the rich tapestry of bullshit and delivers line after line of painfully familiar, nonsensical promises that the douchiest of exploitative social media consultants seem to be offering. We OH, and we weep.

We hope you watch this video and learn many ways to monetize your Twitter followers.

via edrabbit

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For their latest mission, Improv Everywhere installed a temporary photography studio on a random NYC subway car to take photos for a imaginary yearbook of riders.

photo by Katie Sokoler

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Activist pranksters The Yes Men have created a fake version of The New York Post with the headline “We’re Screwed” and an overall theme of climate change. This morning over 2000 volunteers have been distributing copies of this “special edition” paper on the streets of New York City.

Early this morning, nearly a million New Yorkers were stunned by the appearance of a “special edition” New York Post blaring headlines that their city could face deadly heat waves, extreme flooding, and other lethal effects of global warming within the next few decades. The most alarming thing about it: the news came from an official City report.

Distributed by over 2000 volunteers throughout New York City, the paper has been created by The Yes Men and a coalition of activists as a wake-up call to action on climate change. It appears one day before a UN summit where Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon will push 100 world leaders to make serious commitments to reduce carbon emissions in the lead-up to the Copenhagen climate conference in December. Ban has said that the world has “less than 10 years to halt (the) global rise in greenhouse gas emissions if we are to avoid catastrophic consequences for people and the planet,” adding that Copenhagen is a “once-in-a-generation opportunity.”

Although the 32-page New York Post is a fake, everything in it is 100% true, with all facts carefully checked by a team of editors and climate change experts.

Last December The Yes Men created a fake version of The New York Times with the headline “Iraq War Ends”.

via TreeHugger

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MIT hackers, who have a long history of campus pranks, Rickrolled the Great Dome by adding the first seven notes of Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” to the scaffolding surrounding the dome, creating a sheet music version of a Rickroll.

via Gina Trapani

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photo by Neil Girling

Pranksters at Burning Man have changed the sign on top of the infamous Thunderdome to read “Hot Topic”. Bravo!

Thunderdome, where epic Mad Max style battles take place between bungee suspended warriors, is run by the San Francisco goth/industrial group Death Guild and of course Hot Topic is where suburban goth kids buy their clothes at the mall.

Here’s a video by marclar of the Thunderdome in 2007.

See Previously: Burning Man 2009 Photos by Neil Girling

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photo via Bristol Zoo

Bristol Zoo Gardens now has a special enclosure for Humans (Homo sapiens), featuring the world’s most widespread species. The zoo has no idea who’s behind the prank, but they are amused by it and they have no intention of removing the sign.

The light hearted sign explains some well known human characteristics such as: “The human is one of the world’s most widespread species, and is present on all continents. In adolescence, the offspring adopt a more nocturnal lifestyle and engage in ritualised activities of drinking fermented liquids and dancing to rhythmical sounds, which scientists believe may help them to find a mate.”

It goes on to say: “The human diet is very adaptable to regional crop varieties and personal taste, with some groups able to live almost exclusively on chipped potatoes and sugary drinks.

“Groups of humans are often fed by unrelated individuals in exchange for tokens made of paper, metal and plastic – behaviour which can frequently be seen inside this enclosure.”

via Boing Boing

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Urban Prankster directs our attention to the Total Crisis Panic Button project in Los Angeles where Jason Eppink and Tyler Menzel have been doing some creative alterations of crosswalk instruction signs.

That project inspired something similar in New Haven, CT.

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French prankster Remi Gaillard brings traffic to a crawl wearing a snail suit and inching his way down the road.

via Urban Prankster

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photo by ReadyMade Magazine

ReadyMade Magazine has a great interview with design company Macro|Sea, which has been converting New York City dumpsters into swimming pools.

The dumpster swimming pools were recently covered in the New York Times as well.

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Surprise Wedding Reception, the latest mission by Improv Everywhere.

For our latest mission, we picked a random couple getting married at the City Clerk’s Office in Manhattan and threw them a surprise wedding reception. The couple was treated to dancing, toasts, cake, and gifts, all with complete strangers.

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guest post by Burstein!

photo and art by Matthew Williams Design

Matthew Williams, who is a deity of subversive design, has created two beautiful MUNI & DHS photography licenses to confound cops and security guards that (incorrectly) believe taking photos in public places is a crime.

In the event you’re stopped by overzealous law enforcement or security officials attempting to enforce fictitious laws, I’ve designed these fictitious and official-looking Photographer’s Licenses.

photo and art by Matthew Williams Design

These unofficial (not fake or fraudulent, mind you) licenses were inspired when our guest blogger Plug1 was stopped by a MUNI fare-inspector who demanded that Plug1 not take any photos and insisted that he needed permission and credentials to take photos. MUNI has since apologized.

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