Media prank
Encyclopedia
A media prank is a type of media event
, perpetrated by staged speeches, activities, or press releases, designed to trick legitimate journalists into publishing erroneous or misleading articles. The term may also refer to such stories if planted by fake journalists, as well as the false story thereby published. A media prank is a form of culture jamming
generally done as performance art
or a practical joke
for purposes of a humorous critique of mass media
.
, who was known as one of the fiercest pranksters at the École Normale Superieure
organized with his comrades Niza, Larroutis, Baillou and Herland, a media prank following Charles Lindbergh
's successful New York-Paris flight. Sartre & Co. called newspapers telling them that Lindbergh was going to be awarded as an École honorary students. Many newspapers including Le Petit Parisien
announced the event on May 25, to which thousands, between journalists and curious, showed up, unaware that what they were witnessing was a stunt with a look-alike
. A scandal followed as the public fell for it, which finally determined the resignation of the Ecole director Gustave Lanson
.
One well-known 1967 prank, orchestrated by Abbie Hoffman
and Allen Ginsberg
and chronicled in Norman Mailer
's Armies of the Night
, involved a mock gathering protesting the Vietnam War
(that many media took as a serious but misguided effort) intended to levitate the Pentagon
.
Joey Skaggs
is one of the most prolific creators of media pranks in the United States, often using actors to stage outlandish public events that are then covered by news media as real stories. Among his many pranks, he convinced United Press International
to report that cockroach hormones had been identified as a cure for arthritis, and tricked WABC-TV
in New York city to create a news segment (which was nominated for an Emmy Award
despite being untrue) about a supposed "cathouse
for dogs".
The band Negativland
is (according to Time Magazine) "better known for media pranks than records". The band, as an excuse for cancelling an upcoming tour, issued a press release claiming that a teenager who had committed a multiple ax murder did so after arguing with his parents over the meaning of its song, Christianity Is Stupid
. The story was picked up and reprinted as true by mass media, and the band wrote later songs about having perpetrated the hoax. In 2003 the band issued a series of press releases accusing Seattle
, Washington radio station KJR-FM
of playing 1980s music despite claiming it only played "the best of the 60s and 70s" then, after the radio station changed its format, issued more press releases announcing that it had all been a prank.
Beginning in 1999 with the fake campaign-oriented website gwbush.com, the Yes Men have impersonated famous celebrities, politicians, and business officials at appearances, interviews, websites, and other media to make political points.
In December, 2009 an Argentina news station fell victim to a media prank. Acting on a facebook link, an investigative reporter believed that the latest trend in underage drinking was tied to a new cocktail mix called Grog XD. Unbeknown to the reporter, the
recipe was from the video game The Secret of Monkey Island
.
s that take advantage of the very failures of mass media that they ostensibly oppose. Skaggs has criticized the Flash mob
movement, as being frivolous and lacking the countercultural
element of more serious protest art.
Media Event
A media event, as loosely defined by evolving modern usage, is an occasion or happening, spontaneous or planned, that attracts prominent coverage by mass media organizations, particularly television news and newspapers in both print and Internet editions....
, perpetrated by staged speeches, activities, or press releases, designed to trick legitimate journalists into publishing erroneous or misleading articles. The term may also refer to such stories if planted by fake journalists, as well as the false story thereby published. A media prank is a form of culture jamming
Culture jamming
Culture jamming, coined in 1984, denotes a tactic used by many anti-consumerist social movements to disrupt or subvert mainstream cultural institutions, including corporate advertising. Guerrilla semiotics and night discourse are sometimes used synonymously with the term culture jamming.Culture...
generally done as performance art
Performance art
In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
or a practical joke
Practical joke
A practical joke is a mischievous trick played on someone, typically causing the victim to experience embarrassment, indignity, or discomfort. Practical jokes differ from confidence tricks in that the victim finds out, or is let in on the joke, rather than being fooled into handing over money or...
for purposes of a humorous critique of mass media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
.
Notable instances
In May 1927, Jean-Paul SartreJean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
, who was known as one of the fiercest pranksters at the École Normale Superieure
École Normale Supérieure
The École normale supérieure is one of the most prestigious French grandes écoles...
organized with his comrades Niza, Larroutis, Baillou and Herland, a media prank following Charles Lindbergh
Charles Lindbergh
Charles Augustus Lindbergh was an American aviator, author, inventor, explorer, and social activist.Lindbergh, a 25-year-old U.S...
's successful New York-Paris flight. Sartre & Co. called newspapers telling them that Lindbergh was going to be awarded as an École honorary students. Many newspapers including Le Petit Parisien
Le Petit Parisien
Le Petit Parisien was a prominent French newspaper during the French Third Republic. It was published between 1876 and 1944, and its circulation was over 2 million after the First World War.-Publishing:...
announced the event on May 25, to which thousands, between journalists and curious, showed up, unaware that what they were witnessing was a stunt with a look-alike
Look-alike
A look-alike is a person who closely resembles another person. In popular Western culture, a look-alike is a person who bears a close physical resemblance to a celebrity, politician or member of royalty. Many look-alikes earn a living by making guest appearances at public events or performing on...
. A scandal followed as the public fell for it, which finally determined the resignation of the Ecole director Gustave Lanson
Gustave Lanson
Gustave Lanson was a French historian and literary critic. He taught at the Sorbonne in Paris.-Biography:...
.
One well-known 1967 prank, orchestrated by Abbie Hoffman
Abbie Hoffman
Abbot Howard "Abbie" Hoffman was a political and social activist who co-founded the Youth International Party ....
and Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
and chronicled in Norman Mailer
Norman Mailer
Norman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S...
's Armies of the Night
Armies of the Night
The Armies of the Night is a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning nonfiction novel written by Norman Mailer and sub-titled History as a Novel/The Novel as History. Mailer essentially creates his own genre for the narrative, split into historicized and novelized accounts of the October...
, involved a mock gathering protesting the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
(that many media took as a serious but misguided effort) intended to levitate the Pentagon
The Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...
.
Joey Skaggs
Joey Skaggs
Joey Skaggs is an American prankster who has organized numerous successful media pranks, hoaxes, and other presentations. He is considered one of the originators of the phenomenon known as culture jamming. Skaggs used Kim Yung Soo, Joe Bones, Joseph Bonuso, Giuseppe Scaggioli, Dr. Joseph Gregor,...
is one of the most prolific creators of media pranks in the United States, often using actors to stage outlandish public events that are then covered by news media as real stories. Among his many pranks, he convinced United Press International
United Press International
United Press International is a once-major international news agency, whose newswires, photo, news film and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines and radio and television stations for most of the twentieth century...
to report that cockroach hormones had been identified as a cure for arthritis, and tricked WABC-TV
WABC-TV
WABC-TV, channel 7, is the flagship station of the Disney-owned American Broadcasting Company located in New York City. The station's studios and offices are located on the Upper West Side section of Manhattan, adjacent to ABC's corporate headquarters, and its transmitter is atop the Empire State...
in New York city to create a news segment (which was nominated for an Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
despite being untrue) about a supposed "cathouse
Brothel
Brothels are business establishments where patrons can engage in sexual activities with prostitutes. Brothels are known under a variety of names, including bordello, cathouse, knocking shop, whorehouse, strumpet house, sporting house, house of ill repute, house of prostitution, and bawdy house...
for dogs".
The band Negativland
Negativland
Negativland is an experimental music and sound collage band which originated in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1970s. They took their name from a Neu! song, while their record label is named after another Neu! song...
is (according to Time Magazine) "better known for media pranks than records". The band, as an excuse for cancelling an upcoming tour, issued a press release claiming that a teenager who had committed a multiple ax murder did so after arguing with his parents over the meaning of its song, Christianity Is Stupid
Christianity Is Stupid
"Christianity Is Stupid" is the most well-known song from Negativland's 1987 breakthrough album, Escape from Noise. In the song, Negativland rearranges words and phrases to form a different meaning. They sampled phrases from a 1971 sermon by Rev. Estus Pirkle . Pirkle's narrative included an...
. The story was picked up and reprinted as true by mass media, and the band wrote later songs about having perpetrated the hoax. In 2003 the band issued a series of press releases accusing Seattle
Seattle, Washington
Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...
, Washington radio station KJR-FM
KJR-FM
KJR-FM is a Seattle, Washington,radio station that is broadcasting a classic hits format. It operates at 95.7 MHz at 98 kW, and also on the Internet via streaming audio. KJR-FM is owned by Clear Channel Communications, Inc.- KJR :...
of playing 1980s music despite claiming it only played "the best of the 60s and 70s" then, after the radio station changed its format, issued more press releases announcing that it had all been a prank.
Beginning in 1999 with the fake campaign-oriented website gwbush.com, the Yes Men have impersonated famous celebrities, politicians, and business officials at appearances, interviews, websites, and other media to make political points.
In December, 2009 an Argentina news station fell victim to a media prank. Acting on a facebook link, an investigative reporter believed that the latest trend in underage drinking was tied to a new cocktail mix called Grog XD. Unbeknown to the reporter, the
recipe was from the video game The Secret of Monkey Island
The Secret of Monkey Island
The Secret of Monkey Island is a graphic adventure game developed by Lucasfilm Games and published by the same company after its name was changed to LucasArts. The game spawned a number of sequels, collectively known as the Monkey Island series...
.
Critique
Although media pranks may serve as legitimate criticism of the press, and artistic creations in their own right, they are often criticized not only for the disruption they cause but as simple publicity stuntPublicity stunt
A publicity stunt is a planned event designed to attract the public's attention to the event's organizers or their cause. Publicity stunts can be professionally organized or set up by amateurs...
s that take advantage of the very failures of mass media that they ostensibly oppose. Skaggs has criticized the Flash mob
Flash mob
A flash mob is a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and sometimes seemingly pointless act for a brief time, then disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment, satire, artistic expression...
movement, as being frivolous and lacking the countercultural
Counterculture
Counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...
element of more serious protest art.
See also
- Media circusMedia circusMedia circus is a colloquial metaphor, or idiom, describing a news event where the media coverage is perceived to be out of proportion to the event being covered, such as the number of reporters at the scene, the amount of news media published or broadcast, and the level of media hype...
- List of April Fool's Day jokes
- Culture jammingCulture jammingCulture jamming, coined in 1984, denotes a tactic used by many anti-consumerist social movements to disrupt or subvert mainstream cultural institutions, including corporate advertising. Guerrilla semiotics and night discourse are sometimes used synonymously with the term culture jamming.Culture...
- Situationist prankSituationist prankSituationist prank is a term used in the mass media to label a distinctive tactic by the Situationist International, consisting of setting up a subversive political prank, hoax or stunt; In the terminology of the Situationist International, stunts and media pranks are very similar to situations...
External links
- artoftheprank.com - website devoted, among other things, to covering media pranks