Joey Skaggs: hook, line, and sinker

"If you're an artist, you use the medium that communicates the best, and what bigger medium than the media?" asks Joey Skaggs, a practitioner of the rare art of media hoaxing.

Andrew Hulktrans covered a range of hoaxes by Skaggs in the four page write-up, starting with his "Cathouse for dogs" from 1976, as you can see above with some of the TV coverage from the period, with follow-up commentary from Scaggs himself. Skaggs archived more on his site, including a reward poster that was taped outside Joey's apartment, sorted into the categories "hook," "line," and "sinker." Andrew recaps this same order of events, noting that "The lingering malodorous smell left behind by a Skaggs hoax reminds us that the media often functions as the propaganda wing of corporate America."

Apparently 10 years is enough to forget the name Joey Skaggs, because the above clip also includes "The Fat Squad," diet-enforcers for hire, which started with his distribution of a press release, and lead to instant coverage. He announced later that it was another hoax, to the brief chagrin of the media.

Joey has presented a number of other hoaxes and pranks over the years, as presented briefly in the clip above, including traveling confessional, the power of roaring like a lion, cockroach hormone cures, Solomon the judicial AI. Some hoaxes are a mirror for the wishes and hopes of the public, and others are calling for action in outlandish ways, but Joey always pushes the limits of credibility, as noted by Andrew. "Skaggs quickly deflates the assumption that reporters are educated by employing bad Kafka references in a roach pill scam," and was pushing scope of how much people would trust technology over the judgement of their peers. The Solomon Project was presented in 1995 and 1996, well before the current era of Big Data and Machine Learning, when we are now struggling with the fact that "all predictive models are shaded by human judgment, which we know falls far short of being error-free," as noted in an article in Forbes in 2019.

Andrew notes that Skaggs was an early adopter of technology. "Since 1990, he has gone high tech
circulating a well-designed brochure for a 'virtual vacation' spa called 'Comacocoon'." 14 years before the birth of Wikileaks, he toyed with leaks as ways to catch media attention with the Brooklyn Bridge Lottery in 1992, and the next year, he promoted the world’s first sexual virtual reality company, Sexonix, but don't look for anything substantial—it's just vaporware. But for some, the greater digital sin was that this was a hoax, carried out on in part on early message boards including the WELL and Fidonet. One WELL user, Journalist Brock Meeks, wrote, “When you’re jacked into Cyberspace, you are who you say you are. No exceptions. And if you try a street scam out here you’re going to be held accountable. F— with the WELL and you’ll feel like you’ve been f—ed with an elephant prick.” I wonder how Meeks feels about the internet meme and adage "on the internet, nobody knows you're a dog."


In the 25 years since the Handbook was published, Joey Skaggs has continued to prank the media, presenting hoaxes as fact and getting the benefit of the doubt, time and time again. Where his elaborate pranks are intended to improve media literacy and encourage critical thinking, unlike other recent hoaxes, like the Balloon Boy hoax of 2009, which had the apparent goal of landing the family a reality TV show.

If you'd like to get to know Joey more, you can browse his extensive website, and check out The Art of the Prank [trailer; full film] to look back on 40 years of his hoaxes. Parting thoughts from the prankster himself, from "The Well Cooked Journalist: A traditional Joey Skaggs recipe" (6 page PDF)

One would think that one would grow tired of the sport because it no longer looks sporting. More like fishing out of barrel. But each catch is a new adventure and makes a great story. I personally have many trophy fish in my den. And, like all fishermen, I prefer exhibiting the big ones, but I’m proud of everyone that I’ve caught.

I’m just hoping that some day my tales will be more about the one that got away. That mythological, uncompromising, ethical, incorruptible journalist. An unbiased advocate that employs responsible journalistic practices. But for now, I’m going fishing.

His recipe still stands, and is even current enough to reference the value of internet presence. So get out there, hack reality, tweak some noses, and push people to think critically.