Improv Everywhere is Weirdly Proprietary

[John Junk 2.0]

I guess no one ever thought of doing something weird in a public place before, and that Improv Everywhere invented the idea of "The Happening", not Allan Kaprow, or Allen Funt for that matter.

http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/04/rem-removes-big.html

[Shaggy 2 Grote]

What bullshit.  IE is so in my hate pit that I can't even be bothered to type out their name.

[yesno]

I like how it turns out that they didn't even come up with the very stunt in question.

[<<<<<]

Sounds Situationist to me, which goes back to what, the Fifties?

[Dorvid Barnas]

What Grote said.  I'm sure there a lot of good people in IE,  and I still appreciate the idea of them, but their "leadership" makes them all sound like smug dumb attention whores.  They remind me of the truth.com people, who I loathe for similar reasons.

I'm not surprised they don't know their street theatre history.  They don't even know what improv is!
[youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTRPKK7Cc6Y&feature=related[/youtube]
(usually awful)

[<<<<<]

Is the purpose to entertain, or to make a social statement of some sort?  If they're just looking for a laugh, it kind of sounds like just a bunch of hidden camera nonsense.

[Steve in North Hollywood]

My friends and I used to do stuff like that all the time ... Then we became 6th graders.