Shopping in slow-motion (and no-motion) in a Manhattan Home Depot: [u]Improv Everywhere: We Cause Scenes[/u]
This is brilliant.
I know this will sound weird, but I thank God or whomever that I can live in a country where people are this creative… and I wouldn’t want to deny them that freedom.
While reading the text, I was not expecting to be so moved by it…But once it started, it became the artistic experience that was intended, I guess.
Of course, I still have questions. A Home Depot in Manhattan? And, I can’t believe they didn’t get run over… New York must be kindler and gentler than ever.
Have you ever seen a Home Depot with a prettier facade?
That was cool. Fun too.
I’d never seen that Jewel video. I like her taste in clothes.
I can’t get the videos, but I read the article and looked at the photos. This seems like such an insanely wonderful thing to do. I don’t know the word for it. I wouldn’t have the nerves of steel required to be an agent, but I would love to be in a store when they were pulling off a mission 
! I don’t know how I would react—maybe I would be scared I was going crazy. But I think I would start giggling and not be able to stop. I have to go back and check out their other missions.
Hit the Miassions link on the left side and then check out the Best Buy missions. Eighty people all wearing blue shirts and khaki pants descend on a Best Buy at 15 second intervals. This one even brought out the cops. Bloody brilliant and funny as hell. These are masterpieces of goofing on people.
So, if one person does something weird and stupid it’s just weird and stupid, but if 100 people do it all at once, then suddenly it’s interesting? Bah, humbug!
OK, it’s kinda funny for a little while.
Yeah Quint, there was a Home Depot employee like you on one of the vids!
God, this stuff is funny! I’ll be reading of their exploits for hours. The moebius time loop in Starbucks was incredible. Great link, Gonzo. Thx! 
djm
For me it’s not so much that the weird and stupid action is interesting, although it is awfully funny, I mean even one person shopping in slow motion, wouldn’t that be funny ? Hmm, maybe not for everyone.
Well, anyway, what is funny and interesting to me is the reaction of the people not in on the mission, or joke. It’s imagining that exact moment when someone realizes something is going on. That moment is actually very interesting to me. I think there is a special name for it. Like when you just can’t find a word in a dictionary, and you look and look and at some point something happens in your brain and you realize the most impossible thing is actually happening—the page is really not there! The people watching the slow motion shoppers must have had a moment like that. They started making little connections, wondering if something was wrong with their glasses, were they having a stroke, were they imagining things, why is that person standing there like that, was that other guy standing still too, and finally at some point each person had this little moment when they realized something totally unimaginable was happening. I have to admit I loved Candid Camera—except for the nauseating introduction to each segment—for the same reason. It was funny sure, but imagining what was going on in the mind of the person was actually interesting. I think our brains operate a lot on what has happened to us before, which is good (I know this is not a profound thought!). We can deal with situations better as they repeat themselves, practicing works, etc. But it is so interesting to see how it takes actual measurable time for people to get a grip on something they can’t even imagine happening—like people shopping in slow motion .
Maybe you would think the Anton Chekov mission was funnier. It is very different than the Home Depot one.
…
Line forming at Anton Chekov book-signing…Young man buying copy of The Cherry Orchard from Chekov
You don’t sound sincere.
I laughed until I cried reading that Starbuck’s one. Imagine doing it! Imagine seeing it! You don’t think that’s funny?
I don’t get paid to sound sincere. 
djm
Hm, let’s see what one of their “agents” had to say about it:
He said it was an accurate summary, not me…
It is clever. I’d like to see it. It’d probably be more fun to be fooled than to be in the know. (I’d have been 99% sure Chekov was dead, the other 1% thinking he was an Ensign in Starfleet).
But a big part of it still seems to me like empty “cleverness,” and making fun of natural human responses. Sure, plenty people have only heard a bit about Chekov, and wouldn’t know he wrote so long ago. So what? What’s so funny about that? The smirking “I know something you don’t” vibe that runs through these pranks niggles at me.
I know, what a wet blanket. I hope it brightens up your life and brings a smile to your face without those negative vibes I’m talking about.
Candid camera meets viral advertising.
Mukade
There’s a group like that in the UK. I thought about joining but worried about getting my visa revoked 
http://www.spacehijackers.org/html/welcome.html
Maybe in a few more years…
I think Arlo Guthrie summed it up nicely … “if one person does, the’ll think he’s weird; if two people do it, they think they are (well, you know) and if 10 people do it, they’ll think its a movement,…” taken from Alice’s Resturant
Sorry if I mis-quoted, but I think the spirit is captured.
Hey Bert … er … Bonequint!
djm
When I was reading through the prank I thought about whether they were just making fun of people who didn’t know the details of Anton Chekov’s life. I wouldn’t have thought that was funny. That would be mean, in my opinion.
When I read it I felt it was more about the fact that we often believe what we hear if it is told to us in a particular way. We fall for things. If people are in a line to get a book signed, we get in line too because it must be worthwhile. I saw it more as good-natured poking fun at this part of human nature. The comments of the agents don’t seem to be mean-spirited. If I didn’t fall for this trick I’m sure there are others I would fall for, so I don’t think I was feeling superior when I was reading it. Okay, the guy that told Chekov not to write anything but his name because it would be worth more when he was dead? I do feel a bit superior to that guy .
I can see what you mean about the “I know something that you don’t” thing—but to me they don’t seem to be smirking. It’s more like laughing in a warm way. In the Starbuck mission, the customers were gradually getting the joke and joining in. The agents were talking about the stresses of the mission, how too much coffee spilled, the hidden phone looked strange, etc. That’s also part of it for me-----what it’s like to be doing something so totally insane in the middle of total sanity? I guess that’s what “making a scene” is. I’ve always had a bit of a horror of making a scene, of standing out, of having all eyes turned toward me. I don’t know why. Anyway, that might also explain my fascination with this.
I don’t think we all have to like the same things though. There are lots of things other people think are funny or interesting that I don’t, so I really don’t think you are a wet blanket . This just isn’t your cup of tea.
The Starbucks mission is my favorite.
Starbucks was great. I loved the Chekov stunt.
Best wishes,
Jerry
This sort of thing was all the rage in Manhattan a few years ago. I forget what it is called though. Many people, mostly unknown to each other, converge on a given spot and perform an action simultaneously, coordinated via web/e-mail. There is a term for it.
Edited to add: Flash mob - that’s the term.