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Friday Humor: On Infinite Human Stupidity
Here’s a clip that’s a good lesson in how to get famous: Appear famous.
On the night of July 27th, 2012, a huge prank was pulled in New York City and this is the video of what took place. Brett Cohen came up with a crazy idea to fool thousands of pedestrians walking the streets of Times Square into thinking he was a huge celebrity, and it worked! Not only did it work, it caused quite a sir. This social experiment, of sorts, makes a profound statement about how modern culture is so attracted to pop culture, without any real credibility needed.
He dressed up like a typical celebrity and was accompanied by an entourage of two professional bodyguards, two assistants, and photographers pretending to be paparazzi. While the assistants and photographers waited for Brett to exit the 49th street marquee at NBC Studios, they started a buzz that a “big star” was about to walk out, thus making it worth their while to wait and get a picture. Many asked the crew whom Brett was, and no answer was given. They were forced to either make something up, or just take a picture with him in hopes that their Facebook friends or Twitter followers might have a better idea.
As the crew walked over to Times Square, the crowds around Brett grew on each consecutive block. Very few people even questioned who he was, where he was from, or what he does. Brett took pictures with nearly 300 people before the stunt ended. The video even includes interviews with people who had just taken a picture with Brett, and puts them in an awkward position when they’re asked questions such as, “Where do you know Brett from?” and “What’s your favorite movie he was in?” Many of them were overwhelmingly excited over Brett’s walk through Times Square, and it showed.
(h/t FloatingPath)
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saw this on the tosh.0 blog yesterday. idiots. lol
You didn't spoof that.
We are doomed I tell you...
This happened by accident to myself and some friends at a baseball game in Atlanta. One of ours was physically fit and looked like a pro ball player. He had an Atlanta cap. We were on the 'patio' having lunch. Another one of our own looked like a car salesman with a big cigar. Somehow some on the patio got the idea that they were a ballplayer and agent and started getting in line for autographs. Things got strange when they started following us back to our seats.
This interview happened at the shooting in NYC today:
Queens resident Rebecca Fox, 27, said she saw people running down the street and initially thought it was a celebrity sighting, but then saw a woman shot in the foot and a man dead on the ground.
"I was scared and shocked and literally shaking," she said. She said police seemed to appear in seconds. "It was like CSI, but it was real."
Yes, we are doomed.
That was O'Bummer's last campaign!
Back when television was reaching saturation levels, roughly during the late 1960s, the puppetmasters saw the power of the celebrity dynamic. That's when we started to hear about people who were "well known for being well known". Since that time, the dynamic has been used against the public, in combination with other methods such as threats of violence and outright assassination, to marginalize or eliminate celebrities of any substance and to focus the public increasingly on "pure" celebrities, those who are well known *only* for being well known. Those marginalized or eliminated include Dylan, Lennon, Marley, and many more. It has worked like a charm.
Back in the 1950s(!) a man by the name of Aldous Huxley warned us of this... Apparently he was familiar with Edward Bernays' work?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDCahvDK0w4
Yes, the celebrity dynamic goes back farther, and there were people like Bernays and others who understood what was happening. But it's only in the last couple of decades that the American public (and others) has descended into this condition, in which many high-school- and college-aged kids live their lives through their expectations of achieving celebrity. Hence we hear a lot of forlorn young people say things like "when I get famous..." Television seems to me to have enabled this transformation, and I do think the transformation was brought about intentionally. Before the 1960s, many Americans had a cultural instinct against the aspiration to celebrity, just as many parents of the era had an instinct against letting their kids spend much time watching television. I'd say they were right on both counts.
culture-wide cringe moment
makes my skin crawl...
Peak Sims NY Edition.
Reminds me of a different phenomena when I lived in still Socialist Yugoslavia. If you saw a line on the street coming out of a store, you just went and got in the line. Didn't know what it was that you might be able to buy, but those lines only formed if something that was hoarded and had tradeable value came in - like toilet paper, coffee, certain cosmetic products etc. Sometimes it was sugar, which wasn't in short supply, but now you'd be afraid it might be, so you'd wait in line and buy as much as they'd allow. Happened all the time. Someone could have easily spoofed with a product, though I am not personally aware of that happening.
Feeling like one "has" the rare or sought after commodity is similar to celebrity association. Actually, probably more understandable.
ever been to a club where the bouncers forced people to wait in line only to see that once you get in it is empty????
fear of missing out is a good way to fool greedy people.
muppets all over the place! too bad there were no GS salespeople around, they could have sold some 2007 CDOs at par to the bypassers..
Back in 1934 Joseph Mitchell wrote a story for the New Yorker called A Sporting Man. The sporting man, called Commodore Dutch, reminisced about his young days in the Bowery, from the late 1890s to about 1910.It was then New York's leading theatrical, entertainment and sporting district. He talked about the "personalities", the important men and women of the district who were known for their power and achievements and contrasted them with the "celebrities" of 1934 who were famous for no very obvious reason.
Who is Kim Kardashian, Alex...
I agree with your analysis Ciabs, There will never be another "Performer" as celebrity/social leader, the Beatles where the last of that genre, Uncontrolled idealism is dangerous stuff!
Brent rocks. I cant wait for his next album/movie.
We are in fact doomed. The great mass of humans think little more than barking dogs think. They think they communicate via ESP with immortal superbeings in the sky who grant them wishes. They deny the painfully obvious effects of their own actions. They blame others whenever anything goes wrong. They kill on the slightest whim. They breed like bacteria and pronounce ignorance to be knowledge. It won't be long. Facile cleverness has kept the Malthusian end point at bay, but it draws ever closer.
That's what Malthus said, too.
Good he said that because hard to remember him writing it...
Malthusian Citizenism is all about anti-blobbing-up.
People are quite literally proud to be stupid...it's like a badge of honor. "I ain't no pointy head." You hear radio/tv announcers pretending like they don't know how to pronounce a long word; god forbid they be perceived as not like one of the "regular" people. The last thing you want is to appear knowledgeable, you will be ostracized as snobby.
The majority of people are not particularly intelligent. At some point marketers acknowledged this and figured better to play to the average idiot.
And the good news turned out to be stupid people are a great market.
"Joe could understand what *they* were saying, but to them, Joe's speech sounded pompous and faggy."
Lighten up Francis. Imagine a world of people like you. That would be rough.
I have more respect for a steaming pile of dog shit, than any so-called celebrity.
but Krugman, YOU are a celebrity !!!
Exactly correct - Steaming Pile of Dog Shit > Paul Krugman
Dr. Krugman, maybe if you ask nicely, WilliamBanzai can make you one of these:
"Seperated at Birth?: Jamie Dimon and a Steaming Pile of Shit" http://twitter.com/alex_schaefer/statuses/146047866580897793
... you're amazingly well adjusted ... the therepy must have cost a furtune.
"
"Friday Humor: On Infinite Human Stupidity"This is not a display of stupidity, this is a display of how predictable human behavior is, remember, it was the media who taught people how to respond to "Celebrities" now many are obsessed with celebrities and imagine that they "Know" the celibrities they follow, for many it is the only contact with others that they have, entirely one sided of course, still, better than nothing! and a Talisman they can rely on!
Krugman is the textbook case of an impostor groomed and marketed as an expert specifically to displace and shout over actual experts. There are at least tens of thousands of them in the USA. We have tools installed by the TPTB posing as bankers, judges, politicians all the way to the top, lawyers, cops, scientists, CEOs, generals, financial wizards, journalists and teachers at every level. Some are in on it, most are not: they are so dumb that they believe they earned their seat at the table. TPTB do it to maintain control and suppress real competition. Be gradually indoctinated, graded & certified, merit is no longer the measure, the monkeys are trained to buy whatever we put on your papers. Not just your papers, but any piece of paper. I can prove it: take the money out of your pocket and look at it. See it now? Breeding by unnatural selection. Baa.
Try the clam chowder, bitchez.
We are so totally doomed... Great stunt though, educational for all of us. And "they say" people in NYC are more aware of what's going on... Guess not!
Buy physical gold & silver, while they are still there!
"those people" in the video were technically "in NYC" but anyone in Times Square is most likely a tourist.
You are correct. When I walk through Times Square, I barrel right into the mass of tourists so I can play Beer Pong.
The last time I was there was during Guiliani when Big Gulps and Slurpees were legal. Pre-9/11 too. It was very safe at night in Manhattan so it was like Disney World 24x7. We also had an economy back then pre the hopium islamic.
NYC is all wall to wall tourists - so this was expected. They are all walking around looking for celebs.
Paris Hilton did this crap years ago, only hers went on a little longer.
...and had a 'happy ending'...
What? She's dead? Oh, sorry, I got confused over whose "happy ending" you're talking about...
I think that had to do with her ability to 'cornhole'
Not even the SLA could put up with this heiress socialite.
Why do ya think the Kardashians are on TV? Lil' Kimmy done went and did the batdance on tape with a rappuh, and then it somehow got leaked to the web about 2 weeks before her show was to start running. So naturally everyone tuned in for the razor-sharp wit and crisp plots that are the hallmark of reality TV.
Wow how society has fallen. This is awesome. Good job on him.
http://silverliberationarmy.blogspot.ca/
Sad state of affairs, maybe they thought he was that guy in the closet.
I actually saw Brett's first movie and I have his CD and it was pretty good.
LOL! Explains idiot libtards who voted for the Muslim and who still love him. This includes the union scum, especially govt union fecal vermin. They love Allah's hopium.
Wow, you can tell those people were "libtards" how exactly? You're just what the vagina hating, closet homo repugnuts love.......a stupid voter that sees no difference between both parties. You should delete your account and never come back here.
"STONE the heretic breeder! Don't allow him to *speak*!" FOAD, libtard asshole. Go back to KOS.
Wow. "Libtard" and "Repugnut". I thought the people on here were wiser than to degenerate into that nonsensical fake left/right distraction. Good for you...that's just how the criminal elite behind the parties want you to think. Keep calling each other childish names while they rape us and giggle.
Educate yourselves, please. If you think "liberals" OR "conservatives" are gonna fix anything then you're nothing but an uninformed sheeptard.
wow. just wow. stupid people.
Voting Sheeple
Think. These are the people who will decide whether it's Obama or Romney.
Scary.
Shouldn't there be a test to vote, something. Don't we owe it to ourselves to even try to figure out who should and shouldn't vote?
There used to be, but the Voting Rights Act made it mandatory to allow the metally deficient and illiterate voting privileges.
Its been downhill ever since.
"There are only 2 things that are infinite. Human stupidity and the universe , and I'm not so sure about the universe." Einstein
Go back home to your TV nuthin to see here........
"OMG I loved Spider-Man's latest song!"
Those are the kind of people who don't mind showing their papers at DHS checkpoints and being molested by the TSA for their safety. And America is brimming with them. It's pretty fuckin' sad.
If I could give this comment a million thumbs up, I would spend all night doing so.
I go through an airport all the time and I weep . For I am usually the only one putting up a big stink. Where is the rest of the resistance?
Yeah. Picture this scenario: an announcement comes over the TV and radio that all citizens are to immediately report to local extermination centers for prompt liquidation. I can't help but wonder how many would get in line without question.
1 out of 8 not only would not only show up, they would make sure to arrive early.
THIS WAY TO THE EGRESS! =====>
Sign in P T Barnum's American Museum, 1850s. He used it to get people to leave when it got too crowded (the sign led to the exit)
When I'm being strip searched, I always wear my manky old boots that make my eyes water when I take them off.
not as stupid as the royal harry wanger:
http://www.tmz.com/2012/08/21/prince-harry-naked-photos-nude-vegas-hotel...
Playing naked pool with hotties from the bar in your Vegas suite. It's good to be the king.
This article does not belong on ZH.
Oh but it does. These fools invest the same way they choose who to follow on the street.
Yes! Like Donald Trump, the story I posted below. :)
And that is defined as what?
Are you immune to the theraputic benefits of gallows humor?
Internet: Serious business!
Really? ... Well, I guess you don't remember 1988 when Ronald Knapp, an impersonator and dead-ringer look-a-like of Gorbachev was outside of Trump's building ... Ol' Donnie Trump ran down when he heard that Gorbachev was outside his building - the real Gorbachev was in New York that day - fawning all over the impersonator> http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1499&dat=19881206&id=xnYfAAAAIBAJ&... < Many of us do remember and understand why ZeroHedge sees humor in this for a Friday and the effect it has on even the so-called famous ... Uh! You're famous, but so am I, but I am more famous than you are famous, so there!
It absolutely does. It entirely explains the FB IPO phenomena.
The idiots following that guy around thinking he's a celebrity ...
The ones saying lies ("I loved his last album") to be on camera ...
The masses of moronic sheep following other moronic sheep in turn following other moronic sheep without quite knowing why ...
This, my friend, just shows how detached from reality the common man is, how easy he is to deceive, how his ethics have become so low that he lies for the shallowest of reasons, how sheep-like he has become, how he has no real values.
Amongst other things, this tells us a lot about how likelly is that the collapse will be stopped (not likelly at all) and how likelly it is that the outcome will be some sort of authoritarian state (very likelly).
If we do end up in a dystopic tyranical police state, you might want to remember this when you think just how likelly it is that your neighbour will make up some lie about you and denounce you to the secret police just because he doesn't like your face.
"The ones saying lies ("I loved his last album") to be on camera ...
ow his ethics have become so low that he lies for the shallowest of reasons, how sheep-like he has become, how he has no real values."
Very similar to the saying that everyone's your friend when you die. Think about that one
Brainless fools, the lot of 'em.
C'mon lighten up, it's Friday humor.
making fun of sheeple fits very well here actually
You do not appear to have the name Tyler Durden...
Like I keep sayin, you humans are an odd species
WTF; you Matricksies make us stupid and then note how odd that is.
.
That made me laugh out loud.
People are so addicted to fame they would volunteer to be in a real life Hunger Games
"In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes (and hungry, fighting on TV for soylent green)."
David Attenborough disguised himself to study the lemming. FTW
It would be funny if it wasn't so tragic...
Btw, the author himself is a deluded sheep:
"My name is Bret, I'm 21 y/o, living in NYC, the greatest city in the world..."
...except for all the others..., well, maybe not Deeetroit.
Obviously someone that never lived in any other big city before.
I live in London and am constantly crossing paths with people that came from the bonnies to live in London and think London is the greatest place there is. As it so happens I use to live in two other beautiful cities in Europe, so when I hear the "London is so great" speach I just smile ...
Inauthentic people fawning over other inauthentic people.
The circle of modern life.
You're not being fair CD. This is the same base wiring mankind has had for a real long time. Only now the levers are much easier to pull, and knowledge about the levers is becoming more widespread. Can you really blame them for acting within their biologically preprogramed responses? It's the odd individual who either (A) lacks that biological wiring or (B) has enough reason to think through the madness of it and suppress the response.
I don't think things would have been much different hundreds of years ago. A man with the right clothes with an entourage would likely be assumed to be some unknown nobility in the past as well. Though then they didn't have cameras to prove their brush with "greatness".
Thirty years ago, I rode for over an hour to catch a glimpse of Jimmy Carter playing tourist in a fake tourist town.
Although it was the first time I ever appeared on the TeeVee, and just look where that got me!
LOL! No wonder you are a typical Democrat and sheeple.
I agree shameful. Think The Count of Monte Cristo. He fooled everyone by dressing fancy and saying he was a count. And this is early 1800s France. Yes, it's a book. But it shows the cultural contect in which they lived. othing ever chages.
Yeah, but he had money. And as I recall, he bought the title, so he was a count.
Oddly enough all the guy's called COunt before him did the same exact thing. To think about it, all people of nobility either bought the title or killed a bunch of people and told the rest to call them that. Titles are bullshit. A human is a human.
He had my and everyone else on this site's favorite thing: gold and silver. Chests full of it. He purchased a house. But nobility is passed dow thru blood. Hence, why back in the Middle Ages if you did one thing wrong and were beheaded, yeah, i'm loooking at you Anne Bolyn. They killed every Bolyn except for the sister, Mary, I think, who raised Elizabeth, the Quenn of Queens. You can't buy a title. They just accepted it because he looked the part. But you're right he had money, or at least something better than money: gold. He just made up the title. The map he got from the old man in the prison who dug the hole was a map for an island called...wait for it...did you guess yet...it was...Monte Cristo.
The cult of personality...egads!
I love your pic...
Small minds talk about people; average minds talk about events; great minds talk about ideas
No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!
And dudes think big cities are great for the cute naive small town girls they can pick up there. Even if those chicks ever come back to reality and an original rural life,
the daughters of those that stayed put will be a better deal by then.
DoucheMaNiA!!!! Douchebaggery at its finest!!
It Launched Douchebook......
Cc
American's don't make up their minds, the TV does it for them.
or....you didnt make up your mind by yourself, someone did that for you
I didn't upvote you. Someone else did that for me.
Nothing is my responsibility! Don't blame me!
Fucking lol
The 1973 Version.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPq_914s2Jw
Human nature at play. I would suggest everyone check out the documentary "Starsuckers" basically the bulk of humanity is wired up this way. So it's not hard for people to take advantage of our wiring to produce a desired effect. Creating celebrity is not difficult in the modern era if some resources are put behind it. Hell look at the trend in the US, famous for being famous.
That was really something. Nice work, Brett.
This is how the fashion business operates. Promote the hell out of "the next big thing" and watch the lemmings step right up and pay through the nose to get it. Happens every year.
I know that guy!!!!!
i knew a guy that drove a POS ragged out honda but knew a guy that drove a $200k sportscar. this guy would drive the friends expensive car and make dates with girls and then have to come pick them up in his shitty honda...!
Taking lessons from the Spanish ("We don't need a bailout), and Kim K (who at least made a sex tape).
Kim K made a sex tape!? logging off now.
Perhaps we do, in fact, need a Great Culling. Seeing all these useless eaters, almost makes me sympathetic to the the evil warmongers trying to get us into WW3.....
good idea - you first
Time for another biblical flood.
Social proof is a helluva influence
This celebrity thing is typically an American or UK phenomena but unfortunately spreading to other countries with the prevalence of Anglosaxon media and reality TV shows such as Big Brother. It's just like the Anglophile bankster and media contagion contaminating the rest of the world. America is the new Evil Empire ( along with it's poodle and special relationship partner UK )
+1 million
So true.
Who in their right mind would want to be famous? Never knowing who your friends are ,or who to trust. Never having any sort of privacy.
No thanks. Let those attention deprived loons, have their day in the sun, so I can enjoy my day in the shade ;-)...
So now the sheep are fleecing themselves? Dont they get that the Gov does a good enough job without them?
Applause for your fellow US Citizenism Citizens! Freaking morons.
Now how is it different when I got my pic taken with Angelo from Fishbone in New Orleans?
This is the same thing that david bowie did to gain attention early on. He hired an entourage to follow him around to make him look bigger than he was and it worked.
It makes for good propaganda campaign. The sooner people realize that we are being sold the facade of importance on most issues for some one elses gain the better. Our society is constructed to be manipulated.
As a side note, it was Goebbles who said that authority was a social construct. Just as fame is manufactured so is authority by the same means. Authority only has power over us because we believe it does. Once people see through the mirage, all authority is gone.
Hans Christian Andersen beat him to it when he wrote The Emperor's New Clothes.
How about Puss in Boots?
I think The Stones did this as well. They would crash other celeb's press conferences and parties. It was very effective. This is before the scum of Mick and Keith stole Brian's band.
You need more equivocation - it works for the NYC serfs. "They" - NYC pondscum - do "know" "more" about "what's going on" - not the gratuitous scare quotes, because "know more about what's going on" means "they are more propagandized, more complacent, more brainwashed, more compliant, more servile, more self-righteous, more ignorant, more politicized, more frighteningly vapid, more attuned to and in love with all things bullshit". These muppets feel special and priviliged and uppity for living in the vicinity of the 2nd greatest concentration of financial innovators (surpassed only by the City of London) in the world who each and every weekday put in a solid 7-10 hours of ... sustained muppet rape!
A trip into NYC is a trip into the 9th circle of a neoliberal, postmodern, centrally-planned hell, an imperial city of lies built on the dead dreams of the serfdom ... and their corpses too. It is a giant black hole of nihility and conspicuous consumption.
/rant OFF
PS: Every single one of those fuckers is a voter with deeply cherished opinions on how better to destroy your liberty and steal your money. Bet on it.
and home of Wall Street babyee!
I just submitted you into a contest to win a free trip to the Empire State Building. Good luck!
Well said. You only have to consider the following Sex in the City generated to realize that the US is morally decadent and that was able to launch a company like Krispy Kreme. Exactly the same as Facebook .. All flimflam.
Sure, that's plausible. A city of 8 million people, and you're an expert of every last one of them.
Or maybe you're just an asshole.
If sizeable meteors hit both cities the rest of the planet would be vastly improved.
No big deal. Pseudo-celebrities such as Paul Krugman, Dick "Oy vey" Bove', Maria Bartiromo, and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz do it all the time.
Yep - we're screwed.
There really isn't any denying it at this point.
It's just a matter of time...
...and the clock is ticking.
Mousse.
this is normal human behavior
it's like a moth attracted to a lightbulb
There's a REAL reason for the moth's behavior, not so sure about for humans'...
If you follow the celebrity then maybe you will get to procreate with the celebrity?
Pathetic.
In a way this might be less problematic than the "real" thing. People were actually paying attention to a REGULAR person rather than a celebrity. (yes, there's sarcasm here)
And on looking at this from another angle it seems pretty clear that this isn't a good support piece for the claim that business is so much more productive than say govt. It's a perfect example of how the BIGGEST business can be just as worthless to people as govts. (is this another tally point for my equation BIG = FAIL!?)
It's no wonder over 75% of 17 year olds cannot point to Iowa on a USA map.....neither can 75% idenitfy Germany on a map of Europe.
Even worse, over 60% of ALL Americans (of all ages, sexes, etc) cannot multiply 75x13.
There's more then "the economy" to explain why so many people cannot "get a job."
Iowa, isn't that located in the country of Ethanol?
And Germany, isn't that located in Greece?
The pace at which things are changing, one has to really work hard to keep up!
Actually, you just tickled a thought...
Maybe the problem lies in one thinking that they should "get a job" rather than one of "make a job?"
Big businesses string you along the path to wanting to "get." They're hooked in to the "educational" arm which produces their labor for them. Only so many jobs by These controllers... while "make a job" can "produce" as many "jobs" as there are people (though each person would be more focused on food, shelter and water, having no time to commit energies to iCrap).
JK ...DUDE! I got this....Iowa is between Indiana and Pennsilvania...... Germandy is a region in France near the Pacific Coast.....88.
I went to college!!! Now where do I get my 9-5 with 8 weeks vacation + expenses + bonus.
Mom's gonna be STOKED! Moving outta the basement. Whaaahoooo!
Cc
about time my main man brett got his.
great talent. you don't light the candle
under a bushel or in the closet.
he should run for office, maybe president.
who in their right mind would debate him?
Cult of Personality - Living Colour
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzdUy90vTuk
.
someone long ago once said "Nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd."
This is an old staple of human behavior. Nothing new here.
Isn't it amazing that this former "nobody" now has "charisma" and "star quality"?
Its all a big scam, the larger than life personality and the "wow a star just stepped in the room" hype.
I like this vid, it shows how dumb americans are at seeing the truth.
Marilyn Manson said if you act like a rock star, people treat you like a rock star.
He was obviously onto something--that was the basis for his entire career.
Apparently central bankers/financial media gurus have copied this model-- how to be credible? Appear credible.
Its sad....now that he is a famous ________...he has to vote Democrat now forever