There was a nice article in the Sept. 12, 2008 Wall Street Journal.  I think the reason I liked it is because it had nothing to do with subprime mortgages or AIG, or any investment bank.  What caught my eye was the light-heartedness described in “The New Pranksters” article by Ellen Gamerman.  The article described seemingly random acts of silliness by groups of young people.  These grassroots campaigns seem to be spreading across the county (think of fight club, but without the fight).   Of the several examples presented, my two favorite were “Frozen Grand Central” and “No Shirts.”   Video clips of the pranks, and crowd reactions, on Youtube reminded me of the original Candid Camera episodes hosted by Allen Funt.

Frozen Grand Central reminded me of the Nicole Kidman movie “Invasion” (which happened to be on TV when I was reading the article).  The premise is how will folks react if suddenly surrounded by everyone acting strangely? Several hundred people froze for 5 minutes in the middle of whatever they were doing in New York’s busy Grand Central Station.  I loved the worker on the cart who became stuck in the middle of the crowd, for example.

In “No Shirts,“ over 100 shirtless men (mimicking the bare-chested men in the store’s ads) pretended to shop in a New York City Abercrombie & Fitch.  In light of the store’s apparent celebration of “no-shirtedness,” the reaction by A&F security was interesting,

Actually, all of the examples were interesting.  Follow the WSJ links to see the others. 

The Wall Street Journal article was also posted at pranks.com.