“we cause scenes”, we are a closed community: Improv Everywhere
Loading ...Quick Recap:
In my last post I wrote about my mixed experience with Critical Mass. To summarize, I went to one of their gatherings, spoke with a few people and wrote about my experience riding with them accidentally last summer. They present themselves as a leaderless organization that promotes bike rider rights and the reduction of greenhouse gases. I found that many of the participants were unaware of the real reason behind the madness (the madness of mass cyclists in the streets)
This Past Week:
Now I turn to Improv Everywhere. Their catchphrase is “we cause scenes”. It was founded by Charlie Todd, a teacher at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, comedian and New Yorker. At a glance, Improv Everywhere seems to be a group that is open to input from the public (for new prank ideas) and encourages scenes of “chaos and joy”. However, under closer examination, Improv Everywhere is rather closed off from the public with a hierarchical structure with Todd as the God.
What is IE (improv everywhere)?
As some of you have seen by looking at IE’s site, this type of flash mob encourages fun behaviors and interesting scenes around New York City. There are even Global divisions of IE that execute their own little missions of “chaos and joy”. However, the purpose of the site is much more about self promotion than an informative tool that the public can use to get involved.
I signed up a few weeks ago to become one of their “agents” (people who are invited to participate in missions). My hope was that I would be called upon to be involved in one of their well orchestrated and amusing missions. However, in the past few weeks, I have received no information at all from them. I found this somewhat strange because they seem to promote the idea that anyone can participate and submit ideas.
As Virtuous as they seem?
One of the goals of IE is to promote, “organized fun”. However, they only open this “fun” to anyone who wants to participate a few times per year (for their MP3 player experiment and No-Pants pranks). The other 40 or so missions are executed by Charlie Todd and his close group of “experienced agents”.
IE takes great pride in what it does and can be defensive at times. As Shelia commented on the last post, the band REM recently used the idea of mass freezing in place as a way to market their new CD. Improv Everywhere recently executed “mass freezings” which spawned a global phenomenon of people freezing in place.
Charlie Todd took a very defensive position which can be seen here. Basically he was pissed off that REM did not credit Improv Everywhere with coming up with the idea of freezing in place. This sparked a response from IE Agents and readers of the IE site where all of the comments supported Charlie Todd and demanded that REM give IE credit, even though freezing in place was not IE’s idea. I posted the following in response to the post
“I gotta agree with James. Did IE give any credit to those who froze in place in the past? maybe even a “thanks to all of the freezers who inspired this sceneâ€. I dont think so. Although IE made it popular, it is like a cover artist who doesnt give credit to the original writer. Then the cover artist complains when someone else makes a cover of their song. Not quite right.”
Overzealous Supporters
Another person wrote:
Is it coincidence that Todd rhymes with god? I don’t think so. This brought tears to my eyes.
A little strange? a little scary?
This is the REM video, reposted by Charlie Todd
This is the video that Improv Everywhere made
Concluding…
Anyway, my point is that Improv Everywhere is full of contradictions. On one hand, public engagement is encouraged but on the other, the casual fan of IE is looked down upon by Charlie Todd and his regular agents (just check out the the FAQ on their main site). They operate solely for fun and only accept donations to fuel future missions yet they made a pilot for NBC to become a television show:
“Have you ever considered doing this for television?”
We made a pilot for NBC in 2007. It was a blast to make, but unfortunately it was not picked up. We may give it another shot one day if the right opportunity comes along. If you are a producer and want to get in touch with us, please give us as much information about yourself as possible (credits, etc.) We get contacted by lots of producers.”
Inside and outside the joke
A final quote from their site:
We’re out to prove that a prank doesn’t have to involve humiliation or embarrassment; it can simply be about making someone laugh, smile, or stop to notice the world around them.
Yet improv everywhere creates scenes by bringing an inside joke out to the unaware public. The public is on the outside while the members are on the inside. That is what makes the missions so interesting. The website offers a backdoor to understand the jokes or humor but in the moment, there is quite a bit of confusion and obliviousness on the part of the public. They often smile but they are always left out of the scene.
So…
Even though IE has the ideal to bring fun and spontaneous joy to the public, I believe that much of the fun is on the IE’s side of the table. They do a great job of creating interesting scenes and bringing them to the public eye but the public does not often understand it. The community that is created from improv everywhere is actually introverted and closed off from the fans of the group. For my next travelogue, I am going to think about whether there is an example of a true, ideal flash mob group. One that includes all that are willing and does not have a barrier of those who are “in” and “out”. The group Newmindspace may be promising. They organize the Union Square Pillow fight and are based in Toronto and New York.
Sorry for this post being so long and text heavy!
Comments
That’s interesting that they made a pilot for NBC to run. Definitely a contradiction, unless the money they get from that corporation enables them to strip naked on the moon, then more power to them. A company I used to work for asked me to try to partner with improv everywhere once. The company would pay IE to promote the site by maybe wearing a shirt with the logo. I told them it would be looked down upon, but I wonder if they would have done it anyway…
Great post, I think your use of formatting worked, at least for me, I run through the titles and then decided to read, even though it’s not the shortest post. Well done.
I think what you’re on to here is one of the big questions of participation when it comes to theater and performance art. Personally I often find performance art to be condescending - if it’s not an inside joke, it’s an inside academic discourse unaccessible by the audience. I think participation poses a lot of conflicts which you described very well in this post. On one hand it drives engagement and that “democratic feeling”. On the other hand to be avoid losing context it does attempt to recreate the fourth wall in the street and manage a controlled transition from the experience of everyday life to the suspended disbelief of the theater (and of media in large).
Good work!
Great job! Sorry, I don’t have time to read them all, but overall, it’s very well-organized!
I think Improv Everywhere is NOW a not for commercial use group but when the idea of a group that ’causes scenes’ first culminated in Todd’s mind, he probably did want to bank on it. Regardless, I think that it’s ironic that he made a pilot for NBC that didn’t get picked up and now, his group is slowly but surely gaining world-wide recognition for their work. The company I worked for contacted this group because we do street stunts and wanted to see if they had a database of staff that one could use for commercial purposes to which they replied that they will never be correlated with anything commercial or for profit…
Hey David,
This was an interesting post - I would like to point a few things out.
Charlie Todd has a background in drama and acting. He is a member of a comedy troupe, which is why he is so good at coming up with events that will amuse audiences and spectators. This is why IE events translate so well to video.
Improv Everywhere events are only somewhat related to the phenomenon you are talking about, and I think that by considering IE in the wrong framework, it is easy to get the wrong idea.
On the other hand, neither Improv Everywhere nor Newmindspace use the word “flashmob” - in fact we both abhor it.
Check out a blog post I wrote about the word flashmob to see why we hate the word and wish groups would stop using it:
http://www.newmindspace.com/lens/?p=15
I think it is interesting that the #1 most-suggested event that Newmindspace emulate is IE’s Freeze event. The reason we never have is that it just doesn’t fit our framework.
You astutely point out that IE events are often conducted by an in-group and viewed by Internet spectators later on, while Newmindspace events do not have an “in” or an “out” group and the purpose is participation, not spectators. But again, neither model is ideal or preferable, just different.
Thanks for calling us promising, though 
We try to kindle the participatory spirit I think you are talking about, and we have done every type of event we think fits within the framework of a free, fun, all-ages, participatory, non-commercial public event.
so ever since your first post I have found Improv Everywhere to be kind of fascinating. It definitely seems like there is some pretentious characteristics to the group and I am wondering if there is a sort of loyalty or payment of dues you must complete in order to become an agent. Similar to my post with Scabulous you have to play over 100 games to create a profile- I wonder if there is the same time thing going on here???