Anti-Psychiatry Atlantis Big
Brother Wants To Implant You Body Modification BorderHack:
No One Is Illegal Burning Man Captain
Beefheart Chaos Magick Charles Fort: Scientist Or
Humorist? Clark Ashton Smith Corporate Dummies: Sean Healy
& Octapod v IDG Books Corporate Religions Crop
Circles David Cronenberg Death Equinox
1999 Discordianism: A Religion Disguised As A Joke Disguised As A
Religion Dr. John Cunningham Lilly DVD
Hacker-Pirates E.J. Gold Electrofringe Festival
1999 Excitotoxins: A Taste To Die For? Explode My Anus,
The Grappler Said: The Story Of Garbage Wrestling Ezekiel's
Ferris Wheel? Flann O'Brien: Comic Genius Floatation Tank
Memoirs Furry Fandom GHB: The Perfect
Drug? Graffiti: Discontents Under Pressure H2K: Insistence
Upon Truth Home Broadcasting Homoerotic Fanfiction:
Slashing Culture Inside Looking Out: The
Eso-Voyeur Jackson Pollock: CIA Stooge? Jandek Joey Skaggs: Media Prankster Superstar KRS-One: The
Lyrical Superhighway Laughing At The Black Iron Prison: Tom
Robbins Laurence Galian: Beyond Duality Louis Wain, Pussy
Lover M:i-2: The Hitchcock Palimpsest Mark
Pesce Micro-publishing: Buy Me Now, I'm Selling! MP3 For
Video: The DivX Revolution Nikola Tesla: Man Out Of
Time Open Source Software: Free As In Speech, Not As In
Beer PACT With The Devil Phil Farber RU-486: The
Abortion Pill Sexist Fundamentalist Army Growing
Drugs Slavemasters Of Gor: Fantasy Fetish Or Fetishizing
Fantasy? Space Migration Subliminal Advertising: Return Of
The Hidden Persuaders Surveillance Camera
Players Synchronicity And Weird
Coincidence Televangelists The 23 Enigma: Captain Clark
Welcomes You Aboard! The Enneagram The
Invisibles The Mole People The Mothman Cometh The
Physics Of Immortality The Public Relations Firms Of
Dictators The War On Cancer Is A Fraud This Is Micropower
Radio: We Want The Airwaves! TISM Urban
Exploration Urban Legends Weird Web Art Who Is
Attacking The World Wide Web? Zecharia Sitchin
Joey Skaggs: Media
Prankster Superstar New York City, 1976. The Village Voice advertises a
"Cathouse for Dogs." For only $50, your dog can visit a bordello and
experience sexual pleasure with specially selected canines.
New York City, 1986. Ex-U.S. marine Joe Bones spearheads Fat Squad
Commandos, detectives for-hire whose mission is to enforce diets.
London, 1995. New Age philosopher 'Baba Wa Simba' has journalists
"roaring" for primal therapeutic effect.
Brisbane, 1998. Courageous activists expose a multinational eugenics
conspiracy using poultry to target and eradicate DNA. Chickens everywhere
"bok" with relief.
New York City, 2000. If you've felt that the Death Care Industry is a
commercial scam targeting the vulnerable, have we got a Web site for you .
. .
Joey Skaggs is a multimedia prankster, acknowledged as the Godfather of
'Culture Jamming' Godfather. Since 1966 he has destabilized the "cognitive
distortions" (hypocritical and stereotypical thinking, hype, prejudice)
that media conglomerates spoon-feed the public.
Skagg's meticulously crafted 'hooks' have grabbed the attention of the
world's most prestigious magazines, newspapers, wire agencies, and
television programs. Entranced by his 'line' (elaborately staged guerilla
communication, including faked interviews and staged events), gullible
reporters swallow the bait. Skagg's documented 'sinker' exposes their
shoddy research, and the chimera of journalistic integrity.
His pranks are witty observations of American society's anthropological
weirdness, pranks that reveal how the Fourth Estate conspire through
editorial formulas to "dumb down" the postmodern mass-mind for corporate
profit. Skaggs intuitively grasps that Carl Bernstein's warning of a
"Stupid Society" has become a dark reality, a medium whose 'real-time'
deadline makes fact checking obsolete.
'Hot-button' issues that Skaggs parodies migrate through society via
infotainment vectors (tabloid media, cable television, the
Internet), broadcast within pre-selected and limited frames of reference.
Skaggs laid the groundwork for organizations such as ®Tmark and Adbusters.
Journalism sociologist Bruce McNair once described the new media
environment as a chaotic flow model: "there are always other,
opposing tendencies, other accounts and other interruptions existing in
the meme-pool ." Skaggs has reminded us that politically motivated
satire can be stranger than any corporate reality.
Research by Alex Burns alex.burns@disinfo.net
Joey
Skaggs The official Web site of multimedia prankster Joey Skaggs,
featuring archives (dating back to 1966), interviews, rants, articles,
press coverage, and more. Highly recommended! >>Go
The Final
Curtain The Final Curtain was a hoax Disney-like memorial theme park
for the dead, created in 1998 by Joey Skaggs. This satire of the Death
Industry conveys Skagg's genius at developing strange-yet-plausible
concepts.>>Go
Fade
To Black Interviews: Joey Skaggs The Fade to Black Web
site profiles Joey Skaggs' greatest pranks, and features an in-depth
interview where Skaggs explains his modus operandi and philosophy.
Features biting insights into American media culture: "We learn our
geography through war reports." >>Go
®TMark On the surface, ®TMark is a 21st century
corporate consultancy at the forefront of the New Economy. These
pranksters have studied Joey Skaggs' manifesto, and upped the
ante. >>Go
Billboard Liberation
Movement Pioneers of outdoor advertising improvement, the Billboard
Liberation Front has been raising hell for over twenty years. Learn about
their philosophy and influential 'culture jamming' legacy. >>Go
Culture
Jamming: How To Make Trouble & Influence
People This ABC Radio National briefing (October 18th, 1998)
explores culture jamming from an Australian perspective, featuring
prankster Joey Skaggs, Adbusters founder Kalle Lasn, Pauline
Pantsdown, and others. Hosted by Ian Walker. RealAudio. 50
minutes. >>Go
Culture Jamming: How To Make Trouble & Influence People:
Transcript This ABC Radio National briefing
(October 18th, 1998) transcript explores culture jamming from an
Australian perspective, featuring prankster Joey Skaggs, Adbusters founder
Kalle Lasn, Pauline Pantsdown, and others. RealAudio archive also
available. >>Go
Stop
BioPEEP Joey Skagg's 1998 BioPeep hoax spoofed conspiracy themes and
paranoia-tinged Animal Liberation grassroots activism - a little
too well for the editor's pet guinea chicken. >>Go
Law And
Ordure: New York Does Its Doody This High Times article
(December 8th, 1999) by Preston Peet with Dean Latimer, covers a witty
Joey Skaggs prank, attacking New York City Mayor Rudy "Il Duce" Guiliani's
unique tactics to get homeless people off the streets. Peet's revelations
about Skagg's collaboration with graffiti artist Stephen Powers offer many
insights into the prankster at work. >>Go
Pranks
& Beans: You May Already Be A Wiener This LA Weekly article
(May 26th - April 1st, 2000) by Doug Harvey covers Joey Skagg's Final
Curtain prank, and contains many interesting thoughts and insights
about the strained relationship between the High Art establishment,
renegade 'culture jammers', and the media they expose. Harvey observes
that several of Skagg's projects have subsequently taken on a life of
their own. >>Go
Stupid Death Tricks This Salon magazine article (May 31st,
2000) by Jeff Stark explores Joey Skagg's Final Curtain hoax, and
its implications for online journalism. Stark's introduction is apt: "How
a Web performance artist created a fake chain of theme-park cemeteries and
embarrassed 39 newspapers, 19 radio stations, six TV stations, 10
magazines and 20 Web sites." >>Go
Web
Prank Turns Up DOA This Wired News article (May 19th,
2000) by Lynn Burke features reactions to Joey Skagg's Final
Curtain prank, including comments by cultural critic Mark Dery, and
Profits of Death author Darryl Roberts. >>Go
Hoax In The Machine This Seattle Weekly article (May 25th -
31st, 2000) by Angela Gunn offers the viewpoint of a Joey Skaggs
collaborator on hoaxes: "Done right, it's a work of art; done wrong, it
becomes reality." >>Go
Calamity Gene This Wired News article (May 6th, 1998)
by Mark Spiegler exposes the BioPEEP genetic conspiracy hoax
created by Joey Skaggs. Yes, we were fooled. >>Go
Secret Prankster Fund Goes Public This Wired News article
(April 8th, 1997) by Mark Frauenfelder announces the arrival of ®TMark,
and draws a comparison to Joey Skaggs. >>Go
Up In Smoke This Salon magazine article (May 3rd,
1999) by James Poniewozik is about the Billboard Liberation Front ,
but features a perceptive comment about Joey Skaggs and his milieu:
"Skaggs shows a complex understanding of the workings, assumptions and
prejudices of modern media and society, something a "Got Sperm?" billboard
just doesn't quite nail." >>Go
Conspiracy Weary This SF Weekly Online article (March
11th, 1998) by Matt Smith is a critique of Joey Skagg's BioPEEP
hoax, suggesting that he is now "a champion slightly off his game . . .
[he] hasn't exactly been batting 1,000." >>Go
New York Prankster Makes April Fools Of
Media This CNN article (April 1st, 2000) reveals how the media
were fooled again by Joey Skaggs, when they turned up at New York City's
Fifth Avenue to cover a nonexistent April Fools Day parade. They
retaliated by not mentioning his name, but instead writing, "the man is
known for devising elaborate stories to fool the media in order to expose
their fallibility." >>Go
Hoax!
The Art Of Joey Skaggs A brief Joey Skaggs bio for a 1997 Hong Kong
documentary. >>Go
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