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Improv Everywhere: mass twins on subway

David Pescovitz at 11:25 am Mon, Jul 7, 2008

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The wonderful Improv Everywhere's latest prank involved a bunch of identical twins riding the same subway in New York City. Human Mirror (Laughing Squid), Human Mirror project page (Improv Everywhere)

Previously on BB:
• Food Court Musical by Improv Everywhere
• 207 pranksters stand still for 5 mins in Grand Central Staition

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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  • bolamig

    Improv is where individuals are given an open ended performance plan, and the individuals figure out how to make entertainment within that framework in real time. That’s what IE does, although I will concede that IE emphasizes the planned parts more than the unplanned parts.

    What blows my mind is that IE has gotten so well known that they were able to find a dozen or so sets of twins interested in performing for free at a particular time and place.

    I think this is where the future of flashmob type things are headed: getting very narrow niches of people together to do things that only that narrow niche could do.

    I’d love to see flashmobs of senior citizens taking over a restaurant on “seniors free day”. Or blind people with dogs crowding into a hoity toity fashion store. A bunch of badass ghetto looking folks dressed in business attire taking over office conference rooms for “meetings”.

  • paulm

    THAT is cute.
    THAT is cute.

  • mgfarrelly

    Really wonderful. The thing I most like about “improv everywhere” is how benign their events are. It’s not about “punking” people or scaring them, just making the world a slightly weirder, funnier place. Truly lovely.

  • a_user

    ummm this is cool because….?

    a) It’s in New York
    b) It’s on the subway
    c) They’re all twins

    the option ‘(d) all of the above’, was judged too banal to be included

  • SFSlim

    This is easily my favorite IA performance yet, right up there with the GSS freeze. Well done!

  • SFSlim

    This is easily my favorite IE performance yet, right up there with the Grand Central Station freeze. Well done

  • bolamig

    Very well done.

    Reminds me of my absolutely favorite prank of all time, another supremely harmless total mindfuck:

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=BjWB3TdR5ZA

  • Cameron Barrett

    I was one of the twins who took part in the IE prank. It was a lot of fun.

    Not shown here is the 4 hours we spent after this prank doing a different prank that took place in Starbucks. I guess the footage did not turn out well so it was scrapped.

  • busydoingnothing

    Improv Everywhere is quite possibly one of the greatest things in existence in the world today. The whole ability to do something so bizarre and interesting to take the monotony out of every day life and make people look, think, laugh, and smile is incredible and completely inspiring. I love their work.

  • Ruth666

    The only thing creepier than identical twins is LOTS of identical twins.

    Glad I live far from this performance. Had I stumbled upon it my brain might have imploded.

  • busydoingnothing

    Oh, and LOL@Stone & Stone, twin comedy duo. I saw them on Last Comic Standing. Good stuff.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrrQ6jap5ew

  • Talia

    Improve Everywhere are my heroes. They help inject a little laughter into everyday life. Love it.

  • a_user

    you ppl really need to watch ‘Nathan Barley’ to define ‘mind fucking’, here’s a convenient youtube link.

    http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=o4mpJumHU-w

    it’s well Johnson.

  • sfazzios

    As much as I appreciate their stunts, I find the name of their organization a little inappropriate. Improv is unplanned activity on a stage. They seem to only do planned activity not on a stage.

  • Jardine

    Since when does Improv require a stage?

  • Talia

    Its improv kind of in the sense that the “audience” wasnt planning for it, rather than the performers.

    Kind of a reverse improv if you will. IMHO