Friday, September 5, 2008

Social Experiment

My aunt Lori sent this video link to me and it is one of the cooler things I have seen. Have you ever done a social experiment? Share it here if you are willing. I will post one that I have done recently soon. Here is a social experiment that was done in New York City, Frozen in Grand Central Station:

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is called the "Freeze Experiment" and there was a movement in Cleveland last November to try to do one at Tower City. Problem is, what was once the "Grand Central" of Cleveland is now a dying venue. So, it would be like 10 Freezers to every one unsuspecting patron. Not exactly monumental. I was asked to be a part of the experiment, but it never came to fruition simply because of lack of interest. It would have been fun if they had picked somewhere like Hopkins Airport.

Love you!

Scott Teresi said...

Ah, too bad about the Cleveland attempt!

That sounds like something "Improv Anywhere" does. They had a group freeze for five minutes while shopping at Home Depot (coincidentally, Jewel's "Standing Still" started playing on the store radio). Then everyone started moving again but shopping in slow motion. Here's a video of the slow-motion shoppers, sped up so they look like they're shopping normal speed.

It's fun to hear about the employees' reactions... "Typically when we attempt missions in retail stores the customers and lower-level employees laugh and enjoy themselves while the management becomes angry." Employees were really flummoxed.

For another adventure, Improv Anywhere worked with a food court restaurant and got one of their own to work the register. Then suddenly she started singing about wishing if she could just get a napkin. (They even had mics connected to the mall's speaker system.) One by one, other people who'd been standing around pretending to be normal people started joining in the song. Here's the video of this imaginary world come to life.

The janitor, who'd been clearing trash for the previous half hour was in on it and surprised everyone.

Erin said...

Lou- I am sure the airport guards would have fun with that!

Scott- great follow up videos. It seems like it would be very fun to do these skits. I wonder if there are any groups in Columbus that do this. Hmm.

My social experiment was just a simple one. I decided to smile at everyone I ran into and make note of the reactions I got. Suffice it to say, I got many smiles and hellos back. Good stuff.