[video removed]
The above R.E.M. YouTube video was posted to their official “remhq” channel this afternoon. It seems that R.E.M. (or more likely some marketing person at Warner Brothers) replicated our Grand Central “freeze” mission for the purpose of marketing their new album. If you look closely you can see they actually branded the event itself; a few of the frozen people are holding umbrellas that say “R.E.M.”
We’ve always been completely supportive of regular folks going out and replicating our missions in other cities. We even started an entire website to make it easier for people to do so. Over the past two months there have been 50 different “freeze” missions in 27 different countries from China to Lithuania. It’s been an international movement of people creating fun, independent events.
It’s sort of shocking to see this video which gives absolutely no credit to us and presents the concept of “getting a mob of people to freeze in place in a public area” as their own original idea. To ignore the fact that the “freeze craze” has already been an international phenomenon and to present it as something that was inspired by a new R.E.M. album is pretty lame.
Imitation is sincerest form of flattery, we suppose.
UPDATE: They edited the video description on YouTube and gave us credit.
UPDATE 2: remhq removed the video from their YouTube account and sent us a note saying they are going to re-edit the footage to credit us in the video itself.
UPDATE 3: R.E.M. decided to just remove the video for good.
cheeky bastards. Perhaps april fools joke? I should hope so.
That is ridiculous. They are unimaginative jerks that have to steal other person’s ideas because they cannot come up with their own. However, so many people have seen the Frozen Grand Central station video on You Tube, that I wouldn’t be surprised if they watch this REM video and think, “that reminds me of that Frozen Grand Central Station video.” But still, they really should have given you guys some credit…
What a poor rip off of the IE Central Station Freeze. Often imitated, never duplicated.
eww.
As much as I enjoy R.E.M., that’s disturbing.
It’s like an IE mission, except done for a marketing stunt instead of a fun light-hearted event…
jesus, what a bitchy thing to do. cmon…
This is bad… really. I could understand if its regular folk but to use it for a marketing campaign… that makes the freezing commercial!
Yeah, that’s pretty lame of them to not mention IE global anywhere.
This is BS! I just submitted it to digg. Hope it goes popular so more people can see what a rip-off this is.
Seriously? You sound like a bunch of cry babies both here and on You Tube.
I think they should have given the credit. I’ve seen this all too often, especially on eBaum’s, and every time it gets to someone. Are you guys going to ask about it?
Hate to break it to you fools, but Improv everywhere was years behind coming up with the mass freeze in public gag.
Maybe it’s you guys who should give credit where credit is do instead of pretending it was your own original idea.
I’ll see if I can find any of the OLD 90’s comedy/prank T.V shows off of youtube or something and post you all the links.
Until then quit being whiny bitches.
I don’t understand. They stole a filming technique?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNZ8VCMXbVA
Theres one link to the same gag done on a smaller scale from several years ago.
But hey,I’m sure they just hopped in a time machine to the future,seen what a great idea you had and stole it from you.Those ungrateful bastards.
You all made the idea more well known by doing it on a larger scale than anyone I’ve seen before,but don’t talk like you created and own the brilliant concept of not moving.
Re: ColeSloth
If 2007 is considered “several” then you might be correct. Unless you know the actual date that this prank is made. However there are several differences between the freeze which improveverywhere made popular and the one in the link you provided. Which is probably how long the freeze is for, and that the freeze in the video you provided is repeated several times with several different unsuspecting customers. The main concept, I assume, is to surprise a few people, not as many as improveverywhere has. But the only thing different is both wasn’t marketed, however R.E.M. is, there lies the problem, I’m totally guessing that one.
Re:yalinster
The link i provided was from a prank T.V show that was on and was at least 5 years ago when it was aired,so it was marketed.
I watched it on T.V back then and it was the first thing that I directly remembered after I read this.Thats why I was able to find it so quickly off of youtube.
I seen a few others on youtube as well before I found that one, but I’ll go ahead and try to find the name of that show and the original air date.It ran re-runs for several years on Comcast cable channel 9 here in the U.S so it’s also pretty likely that at least one member of IE would have seen it before.It was my favorite gag that was on the show.
Heres a link of the same vid with the show title in front of it called Just For Laughs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2wsY2Uws5k&feature=related
And heres a link about the show.
http://www.tv.com/just-for-laughs/show/28387/summary.html
it aired from 1987 to 1998 so the prank is minimum of 10 years old and I doubt it was a new idea when they came up with it.
They’ve added a credit now, then, after another 5 minutes, corrected ANY->EVERYwhere.
@ColeSloth,
We never claimed to invent the idea of freezing in place. I’m sure a caveman froze in place as a gag. What I said in the post was that we started the current worldwide phenomenon of “getting a mob of people to freeze in place in a public area.” It’s happened in over 27 countries and it’s all been inspired by our Frozen Grand Central video which has almost 10 million views on YouTube. So sure, Just For Laughs had 1 to 3 people freeze in place at a time in a grocery store many years ago for their television show, but I don’t really think that’s relevant to what happened here with R.E.M.
As noted above, the people who run the “remhq” YouTube channel apologized to us and added a credit to the video description. That’s good enough for us.
Now you know how Best Buy feels.
I don’t see why REM should add credits. This gag is well know and very old. You just promote it.
(And I don’t see any addition of concept in “getting a mob of people to freeze in place in a public area.”)
It seems like the other site mentioned in the post (the one that serves as a repository for similar pranksters) is an attempt to prevent competition from arising- Keep all the competitors within the umbrella of the momma company… similar to what facebook is doing with applications.
The post made by you Charlie came off as a little pompous. I, as well as many others, appreciate your down to earth humor and humility. So what if REM pulled of a shitty remake of your gag, you don’t need to bust chops about it..it makes you guys look like your “celebrity” status is getting to your head. Thanks for mentioning your youtube views by the way.. common’, unnecessary.
Just stick to creating and sharing your great pranks… remember you are ordinary guys and gals doing absurd things in everyday life. Don’t over commercialize this, or worse, turn into a money hungry comedy troupe with big egos.
All the best… and seriously, keep the pranks coming, you guys are great… and we all know it already.
- Geoff
Jesus fucking christ, you guys are fucking obnoxious to get all riled up over this as if it were all that original to begin with. PATHETIC. This whole freeze stunt is performance art for philistines anyway - a cheap way for the uncultured to feel like they are participating in something significant.