Get Pranksters: Making Mischief in the Modern World PDF

From Benjamin
Franklin's newspaper hoax that faked the dying of his rival to Abbie Hoffman’s
attempt to levitate the Pentagon, pranksters, hoaxers, and con artists have caused
confusion, disease, and laughter in Western society for hundreds of years. Profiling
the such a lot infamous mischief makers from the 1600s to the current day, Pranksters
explores how “pranks” are a part of a protracted culture of conversing fact to power
and social critique.

Invoking such ancient and modern figures as P.T. Barnum,
Jonathan speedy, WITCH, The convinced males, and Stephen Colbert, Kembrew McLeod shows
how staged spectacles that stability the intense and funny can spark important
public conversations. In a few cases, tricksters have incited social change
(and unlucky prank blowback) by means of manipulating quite a few types of media, from
newspapers to YouTube. for instance, within the Nineteen Sixties, self-proclaimed “professional
hoaxer” Alan Abel lampooned America’s hypocritical sexual mores by way of using
conservative rhetoric to idiot the scoop media into protecting a satirical organization
that encouraged garments bare animals. within the Nineties, Sub Pop Records
then-receptionist Megan Jasper satirized the commodification of alternative
music tradition via pranking the New York
Times into reporting on her pretend lexicon of “grunge speak.” all through this
book, McLeod indicates how pranks interrupt the day-by-day movement of authorized information
and information, utilizing humor to underscore better, pointed truths.

Written in an obtainable, story-driven sort, Pranksters
reveals how mischief makers have left their stunning, wonderful, and
educational mark on sleek political and social life.