This weekend, This American Life will be rerunning the “Mind Games” epsisode, featuring Improv Everywhere.
About Us
Improv Everywhere is a New York City-based prank collective that causes scenes of chaos and joy in public places. Created in August of 2001 by Charlie Todd, Improv Everywhere has executed over 100 missions involving tens of thousands of undercover agents.Subscribe
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i listened to this segment today.
i was so excited by it.
its such an amazing idea.
and hilarious.
and i want to be an agent.
…its such a nice thought that weird things can happen. and people can make them happen and plan it. its real cool.
so yeah.
basically i love you.
So, um… Who was it that said “Never take offense where none is meant?” Sounds like a smart piece of advice to me…
I’ve heard it said:
- “Regardless of intent, there is always an impact you’re responsible for causing.”
- “Good intentions are fraught with flaws.”
The statements above seem to generally acknowledge that, and ask “Improv Everywhere” to just be conscious of how what they do effects those who they target. The intention may not have been to “target” anyone – and they seem to try to be cognizant of how their fun comes across. But it’s easy to step over a line I think.
I’ve been a professional musician for many years and one important trait I needed to develop was an ability to handle an obnoxious bar crowd…Hey… pretend to be into it or ridicule me directly…who cares!!!….rock ‘em up you kids!
wow FUCKING WOW MAN ! what Genius!
I love you guys!
dam i wish i lived in NY city bro id definitely hook into your gig.
ever think of franchising?
lol rock on man i love this stuff!
you guys just tapped into the farce that life is.
just routines.
awesome! just jaw drop awesome!
i heard the radio show .
more power to you guys you captured lightning in a bottle you did it!
Thanks, Slippster
Listening:P
I loved the act on TAL. I simply have to disagree with the consistency of negative opinions toward what you’re doing. What best stands out in my mind as memorable, is when the speaker representing your group defined the goals of the project as accessing the world in a fashion that moves beyond television and movies, to create stories for people to tell.
Calling your missions mean-spirited is naive. They simply aren’t. Mean-spirited implies that your group is working with a premeditated tendency toward meanness, which you clearly are not.
What you do as a project eliminates mundanity from the world, and that’s commendable by itself.
The starbucks mission was a wonderful idea. It’s hearing about things such as that that make hearing TAL every weekend neccesary for me.
Good luck in the future and keep up the good work.
If any of you are willing, my e-mail is Wracky272@gmail.com. I’d love to strike up some conversation about what you do.
I too just heard about IE on NPR this morning.
I would not call IE mean-spirited, because I honestly did not get the impression that IE missions are planned with any malice.
What I do think is that IE does not full think about the consequences of the missions it does plan. On the surface the mission seems like it may enhance someone’s evening, but any benefits are very superficial and short lived, like what happen with the band.
Not allowing “Ted” to leave the bar when he was unable to convince anyone who he really was just cruel, intended or not. According to what Ted said, it sounded as though he felt disempowered… which is not a good feeling at all and very scary for someone new to the city who already feels a sense of isolation. In his own words, he is not the strongest of personalities, and his weakness allowed IE to keep him at the bar against his wishes.
IE may think about putting guidelines in affect to avoid putting unwitting participants into situations that may be detrimental to their state of mind after the mission is completed, something like a “3 time rule” for a mission such as the birthday mission. Try 3 times to keep the “victim” of the mission at the bar or other public space and if the “victim” makes a 4th attempt to remove him or herself from the situation, they should be allowed to do so unimpeded. And if you acquired the “victim’s” email or phone number during the mission, let them in on the mission within 24 hours of the completion of the mission. Don’t call them a full year later to continue the mission; you don’t know what has happen in that year.
There must be a balance between IE’s artist expression and individual’s rights to or not to participate in IE’s art.
I just caught the TAL segment. Bottom line…..Did the IE guys ever hear of Karma? When you create bad Karma, it will only come back to haunt you. In listening the the reaction of the subjects to your “experiments” I clearly heard pain and anguish. Well, the pain and anguish you created will come back to you one day in some way. We’re all just trying to get along in this life, why are you going out of your way to screw with people? Good luck to you. Have a nice life.
I think you’re great. Being surprised can be a great feeling, and now that I’ve looked through your missions and people’s reactions to them, I can see that everyone you surprised ended up feeling pretty happy and special after they got over the initial shock. Hope to see you on a subway car near me!
Alright, I think this is awesome. Mean spirited? what’s with that. So it’s ok for a comedian to make fun of someone and bring em down but not some harmless improv? That’s loco. When I read the first posts about it being mean spirited I thought it was a joke, I thought you guys were just being hysterical!!! but it turned out you weren’t…and then all at the same time it was hysterical again. All I have to say is I’m glad I’m not sheltered. I love improv people. I did improv in high school, the kind where you draw characters and situations and places and had 30 minutes to prepare a 7 minute skit, it was some cool shit…can I say shit? ok, I’m going now. peace in the middle east vatos! (no I don’t know what vato means)
I actually enjoyed hearing the story on TAL and I hope the group messes with more common people. Those people sounded like losers and derserved to be messed with. I just think it is funny to make people feel bad. You guys rock! I am going to start my own group that catches people off their guard and gets them all excited and feeling like they are really connecting with someone and then laughs in their face. Just kidding. You all are actually just a bunch of D*cks. Don’t take yourselves too seriously. You are actually insignificant and meaningless. If any of you think you are actually important you are deluding yourselves. Just kidding, you guys are great. You are shaking things up, and breaking people out of their complacent little eggshells. Kudos. Nevermind. You all just suck.
Absolutely Brilliant….. Please….can you come to Birmingham Alabama?….surely you could have some fun here. I have a flat downtown and I could host as many as 7 people….take a road trip…plan a mission here!
Write back
redheadchik420@hotmail.com
Sarah
Jesse, I couldn’t figure out exactly what that means… But I have heard it myself as well… Apparently, “Pato” means “duck” and “Bato” means “I beat” …? Maybe we can just call each other “I beat ducks” from now on.
woooooah there mister spooky karma guy, lay off the hookah for a while. Maybe when you can come up with a specific crime against karma we can intelligently discuss it, eh?
I think the main point of the whole “offense” argument is that the only reason this whole thing COULD be offensive is if the IE people had malice in their hearts, or if they were insincere, like if they actually wanted to hurt feelings. I can tell they weren’t insincere like how high school drama club people are a lot of times (at least in my old high school), because on all levels they actually DID care about the person/people they involved in their performance.
It is a good point that people could get offended even if IE didn’t mean it… But seriously, all the reasons to take offense just aren’t there (unless one happens to be a hermit-bot that thrives on routine, buzz-BZZ-whirrr). There is only love for fellow humans and a desire to push boring boundaries and routines. Come on, robots, it’s fun! Anyway, see ya on the fourth level, karma dude.
Your mail ranges from “arrest those jerks” to “give these people an Oscar.” Clearly you’ve stirred the pot and got some folks thinking. Never a bad thing.
I’ve encountered far too many people who live their lives vicariously through others via TV, movies, books, magazines, but don’t have much of a life of their own beyond working, eating, drinking and sleeping. I interpret IE’s mission as creating a “bump” in an otherwise flat and unimagininative landscape. Excellent!
I imagined myself on both sides of the question in the TAL broadcast performances. Scary stuff, but fun when the dust settled.
My complaint is there aren’t enough of you to go around.
Heard the piece on TAL. Can’t understand why or how you think you are doing anything is in the least bit constructive or useful. What kind of twisted mind would come up with an idea like what was told in the TAL piece? I would ask the simple question of how you would like that stunt pulled on you but these clowns seem to be too wrapped up in their twisted world to understand moral human conduct. What happened to you in your childhood? If you ever mature enough to be an adult you may be able to look back at cruel acts such as this and truly be ashamed of your conduct. Why don’t you get a job or do something constructive like volunteer work? Your begging for for money via a Paypal donation is pathetic! Who in the world would give you a donation? Just remember – what goes around comes around!
toddy Boy, we TEDS (Teddy Boys) are none too’appy ’bout you messin’ about wit one of our own! I see a flick-blade in your future…oh wait..arf..uh..never mind…sorry old chappy…my mistake
I haven’t read every single comment so might be repeating some things that have already been said.
I did listen to the This Life story.
Of course it is so easy to say this is all great… as long as you are on the side pulling the pranks. Try being on the other side where you don’t get a choice! They are messing with the REAL LIFE of random, average joes for their own VERY *selfish* entertainment needs. I think it is an extremely twisted concept.
Make your own fun within your clique; leave the average joe out of it.
On this Life, the worst thing was
perhaps taunting the guy with the fake birthday *a year later.* He clearly sounded like he had enough. But the group acting in very poor taste and a bullying way needed to pick on him again?
This won’t be considered such a great thing when it eventually goes horribly wrong to the point of a death being involved.
so this comment might be a bit long. I always buy TAL off i tunes and lay in my bed each night presleep and listen to them. This night, i coherced my roomate, chrissy, to snuggle up with me in my twin bed to listen. it was “mind games”.
before I go into anything else that happened tonight while listening to your bit on TAL I would like to add that last may i flew up to NYC from athens, ga with some friends to visit. We met up with our friend andrew who was raving about this improv group he was in. some prank with U2 and a roof and cops. that’s about all I remembered him saying, but I thought it was hysterical.
so, needless to say, that tonight I was shocked and amazed to hear improv everywhere on my favorite radio program. congradulations and andrew- you’re a bad ass.
much love
diana
I loved it. Glad to see that original people still exist.
I’m also glad that folks listen to This American Life – improve and storytelling every week. What a blast.